Angst over the religious vote

It’s been building over the summer, and now heating up for the post-Labor Day campaign launch, this bewilderment over how the two parties stand with people of religion in America. The subject — along with the war on terror and immigration reform — is everywhere. Yesterday I was scanning differeng talk shows on the car radio and heard about three minutes of Rush Limbaugh. I gather news and talk across the political spectrum — that’s the only way to know the issues and engage the debate.

Anyway, I tuned in just in time to hear Limbaugh say that the Democrats want to find a candidate who would appeal to the NASCAR voters, the religious voters, and barrios voters. But he said that’s a problem for the party because Democrats disdain those very voters’ values.

There was a bit of a slugfest going on hours later on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor (with John Kasich sitting in) between a Republican strategist and a Democrat strategist over this same thing. The two women argued rather adamently about what they each thought the other was saying about their own party, and about how well their party really does represent “the Church” views. The Democrat strategist even used those hand gestures for quotation marks when she said “the Church,” looking at bit disingenuous. I don’t think either of them came off well.

There’s too much invective in the daily political debate these days, and it’s only going to get worse starting next week after Labor Day. Odd, isn’t it, that a debate over representing religious values should break down in these arguments?

The more temporal explanation is simply that there’s so much at stake. That’s why everyone is covering this story. Here’s an interesting one from Slate, “Not God’s Party.”

When Democratic Party leaders “found God in the 2004 exit polls,” as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. likes to say, no one expected instant results. Many of the party’s early efforts to attract religious voters, after all, were scattershot and not a little awkward. No one knew quite what the “faith staffer”—a new breed of legislative aide—was supposed to do, and random-seeming insertions of Bible verses into floor speeches came off as Tourette’s syndrome for Democrats. In the longer run, though, the new focus on forming relationships with religious communities and voters has been the right move for a party that had essentially limited its religious outreach to black churches. Democratic campaign trainings now smartly include tips for communicating with Catholic voters. Candidates are starting to appear on religious radio outlets. And Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has even stopped saying things to intentionally antagonize evangelicals.

Well, it’s a start, though these attempts have been more like ‘fits & starts’ than anything resembling a real conversion. But I can’t judge their hearts. Plenty of un-Church-like behavior going on in both parties…..though it remains lopsided.

Which is why it is startling that in the two years since this Democratic revival began, the party’s faith-friendly image has dimmed rather than improved. The Pew Research Center’s annual poll on religion and politics, released last week, shows that while 85 percent of voters say religion is important to them, only 26 percent of Americans think the Democratic Party is “friendly” to religion…

When Democratic irreligion is the premise, it can be easy to conclude that a liberal politician who talks about religion is insincere or positioning themselves for higher office.

Now this is interesting:

Even the party’s own may see talk of faith as pandering. Two years ago, half of Democrats thought that their party was friendly to religion. Now that number has dropped to 39.6 percent, with a 12-point decline among respondents who aren’t affiliated with a religious tradition. These Democrats view the party’s interest in talking to religious voters as a sure betrayal of the party’s principles.

What? Talking to religious voters is a betrayal of the party’s principles?! What does that say?

It says that one party’s version of religion is more acceptably genuine than the other’s, which is at the root of this whole political problem with mainstream America. But look at Slate’s explanation:

Rarely is there an acknowledgment that Democratic politicians—and Democratic voters—hold liberal political views precisely because of their religious beliefs, that caring for the most vulnerable in society and protecting God’s creation are imperatives, too.

Add that explanation to the above statement that even talking to religious voters betrays those principles, and you can see the elitist mentality over who is the better…what?…servant of God?

Know what you believe, and see whose message — in any political party – resonates with revealed Truth. Because caring for the most vulnerable in society is not a matter relative to the times, or political correctness.