NYT: Evangelicals did not desert Republican candidates and did not stay home

[DeepModem Mom]

Religious Voting Data Show Some Shift, Observers Say
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: November 9, 2006

Ever since George W. Bush won a second term two years ago by relying on the turnout of his religious conservative base, Democrats have been intent on siphoning off religious voters.

Some liberal religious advocates proclaimed yesterday that the Democratic sweep showed that their party had succeeded in closing what they called the God Gap. But the results are more mixed than that, according to experts who analyze trends among religious voters.

Defying predictions of widespread disillusionment, white evangelical and born-again Christians did not desert Republican Congressional candidates and they did not stay home, nationwide exit polls show.

When it came to turnout, white evangelicals and born-again Christians made up about 24 percent of those who voted, compared with 23 percent in the 2004 election. And 70 percent of those white evangelical and born-again Christians voted for Republican Congressional candidates nationally, also little changed from the 72 percent who voted for such candidates in 2004.

But in some states, like Ohio and Pennsylvania, Democratic Senate candidates who intentionally tried to appeal to religious voters did succeed at winning back a significant percentage of Roman Catholics and white mainline Protestants....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09relig.html?ref=politics

[williesgirl]

1. K&R

[heinz]

19. Some might not remember

Let us not forget that at the beginning of the last century and well into the 50's and 60's the Democrats used to be the home of hardcore evangelicals, racists and many other crazy conservative Southerners. You only have to look at Jimmy Carter's old man and how he himself also used to be a member of the southern baptists movement. When we liberals finally took over the Democrats in the 60's we booted all those people out which was the smartest thing we ever did. However, there may still be some lingering loyalty in the south amongst hardcore Christians and this may have something to do with the votes we picked up.

[Roarin]

50. Don't forget the northern Christians

We helped beat the extremists again this week. History repeats itself?

[Ikonoklast]

56. Since when Baptists=Evangelicals?

Baptists indeed are conservative, but do not march lockstep with the modern Christian fundamentalist evangelical movement.

Jimmy Carter is a self-described evangelical. Do you think he's a crazy racist?

Your post is very telling.

[Lil Red]

66. If you don't know that Baptist doctrine is evangelical,

then you don't know Baptist doctrine. Does the name Billy Graham mean anything to you?

[ktowntennesseedem]

60. Welcome to DU, heinz!

:hi:

[ktowntennesseedem]

61. self delete - dupe

(stupid computer!)

[crickets]

63. "we booted all those people out"

"at the beginning of the last century and well into the 50's and 60's the Democrats used to be the home of hardcore evangelicals, racists and many other crazy conservative Southerners."

While Kennedy was the one who got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the table, LBJ did stick with it to get it passed, and he also got us the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I'm not a big Johnson fan, but he did get that part right. Not all of us white Southerners are crazy bigots, and not all of us were then--though it definitely seemed like it, I know.

After the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Southern whites left the Democratic party in droves (my parents among them, sigh) for racist reasons. No one had to boot them out. They left with gusto. Sad, but true. I don't think the reasons the South has stayed red are solely explained by the crazy bigot element, though it's definitely there. Unfortunately. Why many of the next generation have continued to shoot themselves in the foot economically by voting Repub "just like Mama and Daddy did" is beyond me, but I think some of it comes down to tradition, loyalty, and not questioning the status quo. It's doesn't make sense and it's frustrating as all hell, but there ya go.

Not to jump on you or anything, just clarifying a bit. Welcome to DU, heinz! :hi:

[David__77]

2. Fine.

That's why it will indeed be difficult in much of the south. It's why Lucas lost in KY by a big margin. But everyone is sick of the fundie party.

[Ian David]

3. Bush's base are the "slow learners." n/t

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

4. This is really good news

It means even though the right-wing evangelicals threw everything they had at us, we still won. And in future races, the Republicans will have to continue to dangle that raw meat, which will further alienate the moderate voters who are the REAL force in electoral politics.

Let's hope that the Republicans don't wise up any time soon.

[tblue]

5. I think you assessed that perfectly. So we can't win the fundie (* = Jesus) vote and

we wouldn't want to be the party controlled by them, that's for damn sure. They and the Repugnicans deserve one another.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

10. Not so fast...

There is a growing portion of the evangelical community for whom abortion and gay marriage are not the defining elements of Christianity. A few of these wacko's actually take the Sermon on the Mount literally ("blessed are the peacemakers") and are coming around to a progressive point of view. They've been mislead by their spiritual and political leaders, and to the extent that they've seen the light, they should be welcome in our tent.

[papau]

14. Well said - :-) Winning 1/3rd of the white evangelicals may have moved us to 51%

Add in the Black evangelicals who were not included in the AP/NEW YORK TIMES analysis and we may have had a majority of the evangelicals - giving us our majority in Congress

- And I hate being in the minority.

[civildisoBDence]

25. Global warming is also bringing some talibangelicals to the light

My sister is a fundie, and she honestly believes that the earth is 6000 years old, and that the entire fossil record was put here to test the faith of true believers. (She's also a virtual saint, btw.)

Magical thinking like that is very hard to dispel.

Newsprism

[Roarin]

44. They should be welcome in our tent.

Thanks. I'm a newbie (sort of). Is there a special section here for Christians to post too?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

62. Go to the back pew!

Just kidding. There is a religious/theology forum here, but I think that generally for purely religious topics. Where religion intersects politics, feel free to jump in anywhere.

I do tend to lose patience with those who say that we should shun evangelicals. These people have been shamelessly mislead by their spiritual leaders (who are more about power and prestige than they do about winning souls) and by their political leaders who use their votes to implement immoral policies (Who Would Jesus Torture?).

To the extent that these folks are seeing that maybe liberals are more like Christ that they previously thought, they should be welcome to join in the discussion.

[Roarin]

49. A lot of us Christians smelled a religious theocracy taking hold.

Believe me..that's a bad thing for a Christian too.

[heidler1]

45. They set such perfect bad example of loony thought.

[freefall]

53. Thank you for that perspective, Jeff in Milwaukee. It certainly

cheers me up. And of course you are right. In order to have any kind of chance of winning future elections the Republicans will have to keep appealing to their rabid base. Thanks again.

:hi:

Peace,

freefall

[Joe for Clark]

6. I hope you understand this as meant -

Those numbers are so meaningless.

The fact is, if they had something, they'd have won - you know??

I am a catholic boy, from west PA -

It is not that they were wrong, exactly - it is that they misunderstood the main idea.

And that doomed them.

WE do not have a problem with any religon that understand the main theme -

You treat your brother as you would treat god. You do that - and there is no issue.

Christian, jewish, muslim, budahist - it DOES NOT MATTER.

This isn't a christian thing - really.

[Justyce]

28. I agree --

if being a Christian isn't about helping people, helping the poor, taking care of our children & elderly, then I think the repubs must go to a different type of church than I grew up with. Not to mention the fact that I firmly also believe in a separation of church and state, which they seem to have forgotten. Why is it so hard to look to a church for religious guidance rather than a bunch of politicians?! I believe our government should help people rather than hurt people, but to me, that is a basic humanitarian issue that should go without saying, not a religious issue.....

[Roarin]

47. I am a catholic boy, from west PA -

Some of my ancestors were Catholics from PA.

Indiana here.

[Dob Bole]

7. Democrats did get more evangelical votes. See this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2657491

[Cha]

8. I just saw Dean on The Daily Show

via youtube and he said we got 1/3 of the Evangelical vote.

http://www.dnc.org/a/2006/11/watch_it_govern_7.php

[Roarin]

52. Dean said we got 1/3 of the evangelical vote.

Those would be the ones that read their constitution. Thank God Katherine Harris got her walking papers. That horse she was on was getting pretty high.

[Cafe Americano]

9. Democrats: do NOT court religious crackpots

The average American is NOT a fundamentalist Christian. They share a couple of points in common and that's it. That's the worst idea coming from any Dem leader to try and make the same mistake the Repubs made and associate with crackpot religious types. Imagine if Clinton had started getting policy advice from Scientologists and you have an idea of what it looks like. They need to stay close to the GOP and keep dragging them down. Stay away from them!

[inthebrain]

11. We upped our count by 3%

amongst evangelical voters. They may not have stayed home but they seem to have voted for Democrats.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

12. The minimum wage apparently is a great Democratic "wedge issue"

for splitting off some evangelicals, according to your NY Times article (see the snippet below).

Groups like Rev Jim Wallis's "Red-Letter Christians" ( http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=about_us.redletterchristians ) are doing a great job reorienting evangelicals toward what Jesus actually is credited in the Bible as having said. By my reading of the Bible, Jesus's number one issue was helpeng the poor, not protecting private property with "supply side economics" or taunting scapegoats each campaign season.

IMO the more evangelicals who actually read their Bibles rather than rely on the interpretations of Falwells and Robertsons, the more they'll stand with us and not with them.

From http://www10.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/politics/09relig.html?pagewanted=print :

"Religious Voting Data Show Some Shift, Observers Say

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN November 9, 2006

... "The biggest change appears to be in the states where the Democratic candidates made a real effort to attract these religious voters," Mr. Green said. "It seems to have paid off." Never before in any election had the religious left been so organized and so active. They held rallies and passed out hundreds of thousands of voter guides, all with the message that religious conservatives' traditional agenda of opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage was too narrow. With the help of religious liberals, six states passed ballot initiatives calling for a raise in the minimum wage.

"This was a significant shift in the religious vote, where you see a reclaiming of the values debate," said Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a liberal group formed after the last election to counter Catholic conservatives. In Ohio, voters elected all four state board of education candidates who opposed the teaching of intelligent design, and victories like that gave religious liberals cause to proclaim the end of the right's dominance of religious voters.

Bobby Clark, deputy director of ProgressNow, a liberal group in Colorado, said, "After 2004, people were saying that the religious right owns this country now. Far from it. They have networks and the ability to move quickly and to dominate the airwaves, but they do not represent most Americans. Most Americans are pretty moderate people.""

[DeepModem Mom]

31. Thanks for your post, and for adding the encouraging passage...

you added. I completely agree!

[Trajan]

13. The Moderate Independents deserted the GOP ....

As well they should have ...

They should have never gotten into THAT bed in the first place ....

[rosesaylavee]

15. In reading the end of the NYT article

I wonder if we can trust the numbers given as they admit they are not comparing apples to apples...

"...The shifts in the Catholic vote were the most noteworthy. In Ohio, according to exit polls, Democrats picked up 20 percent more of that constituency than they had in 2000; in Pennsylvania, they picked up 11 percent more. The comparison is not exact, however, because 2000 involved a presidential election, not a midterm election. Data for the 2002 midterm election in those states are not available.

(Comparisons of evangelical voters are unreliable because exit poll questions designed to identify evangelicals changed from one election to another.)"

:shrug:

[acmavm]

16. Sometimes I think people confuse the 'evangelicals' with those

who do have a belief in God (or higher power, or Goddess, or whatever). I see the 'evangelicals' as being what I would call the rabid believers, the one's who pettiness and insufferable arrogance in their own righteousness cancels out any positive aspects that religion could or would have for that individual.

Those of us that have faith tempered with a knowledge of our own humanity and obligation to others in the spirit of the message of 'I am my brother's keeper' will vote our consciences and if we are true to our beliefs, those votes will never go to the selfish, greedy, corrupt, mean-spirited, arrogant, hypocrites that run and seem to gravitate toward the republican party.

[No Exit]

27. Trust me, here in the south it is easy to tell the difference.

I was educated for 12 years in schools where we had Religion class EVERY SINGLE DAY as part of our curriculum.

But Evangelicals do not consider me a Christian. Why? Because I am a Catholic.

As I go about my work each day, I encounter numerous persons who make reference to words like "Godly" and "Christian". It is quite the fashion, lately, in this part of the country. Furthermore, "Bible study" has become a form of social gathering in numerous occupations which have nothing to do with religion.

As for me, I was (like most Americans) trained to believe in monotheism, and to pray to that One God. I have, like many others, evolved my own set of inner points, divided roughly into "what I believe", "what I disregard", and "what I think is b.s. being used by powerful people to control the rest of us".

Having been trained from an early age to pray each night as I go to bed, I still inwardly do so. Since early 2003 (the time when the I realized Bush/Cheney were causing our military to invade Iraq, putting all our lives in peril), I began praying "Dear God, please destroy Bush and Cheney." Some time later, it occurred to me that the deity frowns on those who kill or wish death on other humans. So I modified my request and began praying, "Dear God, please make Bush and Cheney go away so they can't hurt us any more."

Damned if "God", or whatever "it" is, hasn't been answering my prayers--albeit, slowly and methodically, bit by bit--ever since 2003! I really, really feel "blessed" (as people say down south).

[Roarin]

42. So 'evangelicals' or "fundies" are like the old southern racists?

Yea..I'm a Christian Protestant and I can't stand them.

[Dob Bole]

57. You mean like the guy down in post #30?

I'm an evangelical, yes I actually believe this stuff, and no I'm not ashamed of it.

What depresses me at times is the fact that DUers attack broad religious groups instead of their political opponents. Instead of complaining about the religious right, they attack 'evangelicals', and thus hurt the evangelical left, gay evangelicals, etc.

[Totally Committed]

17. Any evangelical, religious, or "values" voter who did not desert that Party

after all the sex scandals, corruption, arrests, endictments, etc., better never whine about Ted Kennedy's "Northeast Liberal Values" or "Nancy Pelosi's SanFrancisco Values" ever again. And, I mean NEVER. The Republican Party and the Bush government have proved themselves to be some of the most "NON-Christian" entities in this country today. The hate, the inteolerance, the bigotry, the lack of respect for the rule of law, and the lack of humanity has been astounding, and these Christians are still with them? As I said, they lost their whining rights as far as I'm concerned, and are now not only as COMPLICIT with the Republican Party for all this sh*t, but actually as stupid as they are as well.

Ugh.

TC

[kentuck]

18. Interesting...

More evangelicals voted this time than in 2004? Then how did the Democrats win?? In my opinion, the Repubs were not disheartened at all. They turned out in huge numbers, witness the Virginia Senate race. So how did the Democrats win? I believe it may be somehow related to the "new media" and its organizing capabilities. In other words, I think you, reading these words right now, had much to do with the Democratic victory.

[Tanner_B.]

20. Wha...?

"70 percent of those white evangelical and born-again Christians voted for Republican Congressional candidates nationally"

At least 30% of them woke up and used some common sense. But this is still appalling.

[heinz]

21. Remember when?

Let us not forget that at the beginning of the last century and well into the 50's and 60's the Democrats used to be the home of hardcore evangelicals, racists and many other crazy conservative Southerners. You only have to look at Jimmy Carter's old man and how he himself also used to be a member of the southern baptists movement. When we liberals finally took over the Democrats in the 60's we booted all those people out which was the smartest thing we ever did. However, there may still be some lingering loyalty in the south amongst hardcore Christians and this may have something to do with the votes we picked up.

[OHdem10]

22. McCaskill received 25% of Talent's Christian Vote

and it would appear this surely hurt Talent, Republican.
This came from 2 members of Congress.
Sometimes, I wonder if they are just trying to put lipstick
on that pig.

Is this an effort to try to keep the Evangelicals in Repub.
Column.

There was a report the Catholics came home to Democrats.

Up to now if all the the Evangelicals stick with the Repubs
Repubs win. This is why they won in last two Presidentail
elections. Is it true or not?? The Fundamentalist Wing
of Evangelicals are the only ones Bush can count on solidly.
They will follow him over a cliff. They are only a fraction
of Evangelicals. The Mega Church Type Evangelicals often
avoid Politics. Have both Dem and Republican Members.
Bush has courted them in last elections. Rove Loves to give
the impression that anyone who goes to church is Republican.
The truth eventually comes out.



NYT has made errors in past--so has Pew Poll.

[1932]

23. Jim Wallis: God's Politics.

Everyone should read this book.

[1932]

24. Jim Wallis: God's Politics.

Everyone should read this book.

[smb]

26. Food Fight!

Given that the neocons and the theocons are the factions that actually shape GOP policy (to the extent that they have a policy above and beyond simple opportunism), they are clearly the ones to blame for this debacle.

If the fiscal-conservative faction of the GOP can press this point home and take back their party (for the past few years, the GOP has been like the Dursley household, with the theocons in the role of Dudley and the fiscal conservatives in the role of Harry), the Dems will get an opposition that they can rationally work with and that actually serves a useful purpose ("sounds like a nice idea but it costs the taxpayers too much" is a legitimate viewpoint, which in some cases deserves to prevail).

[nolabels]

41. That fiscal conservative title is a misnomer

In actuality they are a small section of the population with a large amount of assets that depend on the federal government for their existence. They are also the ones who benefited even more from the New Deal more than the poor. Corporations and the wealthy have profited handsomely from the government running a protection racket for them ever since.

[ThoughtCriminal]

29. Evangelicals need to be "Saved"

Many of them are quite frankly, following an anti-Christ religion of greed and hate. If they continue to ignore the actual teachings of Jesus and embrace the Doomsday Cult that their leaders have created, the GOP can have them. The rest of America is sick of them and proved that last Tuesday.

Amen?

[StraightDope]

30. Fuck the Jesusians...

That is all.

[Roarin]

32. Why does the NYT say I don't exist?

The Protestant Independents I know vote their consciences more often then follow party lines.
The pubs lost most of my friends way back when they dissed Harriet Miers.

And for the record, I think Ann Coulter is vile as are many other wacked right wing extremists.

Am I in?

[Mark E. Smith]

33. The Fundies Now Own The GOP

... which will open the door to us for
some huge gains in 2008, including
the White House.

And they ain't gonna nominate no
McCain or Rudy.

[Roarin]

38. The Neo extremists dissed all my Christian friends.

Liberal Christians..moderate Christians..Mexican Christians. You name it.

[niceypoo]

34. BULLSHIT! I work with four religious right nutcases...

...Two voted for Bush and two voted straight dem tickets. One even told me that his extended family, all religious right who voted for Bush twice, all voted dem. he told me that it was the corruption that did it. They just could not vote for people who were such obvious crooks. Also the obvious lying RE Iraq pissed them off. My friend, even though his family goes to a koolaid drinking church, is a very ethical guy as is his family. Screw what the NYT says, they sold us this war.

[Roarin]

37. The pubs dissed the religious wing.

They don't need no "bleeding hearts"...blah blah blah.

[bling bling]

65. I think that saying "Screw what the NYT says"

is pretty much good advice as a general rule about that paper. I don't trust them and when they run a story I almost always like to see it corroberrated (sp??) by another source before I bother getting too involved.

They lost their way a few years ago and I no longer find them to be credible on political matters.

[NEOBuckeye]

35. So this just proves that they, too, can be overpowered and beaten...

If everyone else just turns out to vote.

[Roarin]

36. Extremists never win over the majority without consent.

I don't do extreme.

[tlsmith1963]

39. This Proves...

...that there really aren't that many fundies. We can still win without those clowns. What a relief.

[Roarin]

40. What do you call a fundie?

??

[Solon]

58. I really hate linking to Wikipedia, but, hell, when not vandalised, its as good as Brittanica...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianity

This give a good summary, also related to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism

Usually fundies are people with a very specific amount of religious and political beliefs, extremely reactionary and conservative.

[w4rma]

68. Evangelicals != fundamentalists (nt)

[EST]

43. I suspect the sudden flurry of interest-totally missing in 2004-

in the reliability and hackability of voting machines, as well as the attention devoted to voter suppression and intimidation had a lot to do with the difference in vote counts.

Lou Dobbs and his two weeks of hammering on the subject were probably responsible for a lot of intimidating the intimidators.
Blackwell was unable to pull the same shit this time and, lets face it, if Blackwell had been yanked up short at that time, those elections would have turned out more like this one.

[PATRICK]

46. This is bad news for the GOP

if the ruined GOP coalition is left with a base still alseep. First they are very leader oriented and their leadership is poisoned. They find true Christian leaders a lot of the blind voting disappears. In my district the single issue wall is always something to do with sexual morality. Since the people here are more educated and compassionate that line is abortion and, yes, stem cell research, even for Democrats of faith. It was an effective cynical ploy, finding another line of indignant rage, another line drawn in the shifting sands of inevitable, NATURAL human progress.

Why? Because it is an absolute compassion inflaming easy rallying point that can and does deny the complex issues, the non-absolute. But when they ignore things like health care for children, infant mortality, the uselessness of prohibition laws they get more than they bargained for- which is nothing of what they believe in and extraordinary harm and evil to the values they purport to protect. They can be woken up to that too without every Dem having to be a Casey, a RW poser(which so many GOP and Church leaders are). Service to human needs, compassion, against the materialistic rule of government and society, these all have the liberal side. A lot of honest dialogue is necessary for the weird disconnect and contradictory verbal prejudice to dissipate.

This is part and parcel of undoing the hate prejudice sown for so long against democrats and liberalism. The common ground is the real values hidden underneath the lies and the red flag lines. For example, stem cell research. The real villainy in unwanted and destroyed fertilized eggs is in vitro fertilization. If this is so absolute an issue why have they retreated to preventing research on discards? In the same way, for centuries, autopsies and use of cadavers for studies was a crime and therefore grave robbers were punished severely. How far back to those old lines do the righteous want to go? How is there emotional stand any different at all or their moral view purer or more complete than the prejudices of the past? Maybe some do want to go back a Biblical culture frozen in time. The Amish try and that group, more honest, has been revoltingly courted by the Bushies who are less sure of the muddled hypocrisy of the misled who want their Mammon and their heaven too. yet the Amish avail themselves of modern medicine derived from progress their own community could never have produced.

Dialogue is necessary and it is also necessary to share the fact that the means to an end are not wonderful in themselves and raise a lot of questions about the bald plasticity of life, upsetting questions those enjoying a simple faith realize are threatening in essence to their whole world view and faith organization.

One of the answers is to get money and faith both out of civil government and politics as undue influences that seek gain or punishment of others and harm both to the society and the individual. If there WAS an alternate human race, not just those "spiritually saved" that was composed of Gandhis, prophets, Buddhas and giants of true moral compassion and wisdom would they be concerned so much about moral regulations and destroying civil government? It would a whole other ball game of great challenge indeed, but it would not take the regressive form of tyranny, hatred and blinkered vision. It would not except the poisoned arenas of corporate information dominance.

One of the answers is to finagle the mess by getting candidates feeding the red meat issues to benefit the whole and contesting the money game until it is neutralized. I think few Dems have crossed that line fatally and hope for everyone's sake it does, at least, less harm. Meanwhile they high road and the meeting head on of the central issues and imbued prejudices should not be simply sloughed off no matter how despairingly hardheaded people can be in a culture or corrupted information and dialog.

[eviltwin2525]

48. even better!

To me, this is even better news than if the fundywackonutjobs HAD stayed home. This means they showed up, and enough of the majority of reasonable people also showed up to make them irrelevant. Not only do we have better ideas and ideals than they do, THERE ARE MORE OF US. All we have to do is show up! And continue to show up!

[Auntie Bush]

51. The Dems won in spite of the high Christian turnout because we

got more new people with GOTV and Dean's success. Plus Dems were much to interested/scared about the horror of the bush* administration and what was happening to our beloved country. Also, there was so much warning or exposure about cheating and screwed up voting machines that I think Rethugs chickened out on pulling many of their dirty tricks.

[barb162]

54. velly eenteresting

[Dob Bole]

55. DEMS DIDN'T GET 1/3 OF EVANGELICAL VOTE: THEY GOT HALF!!!

See my number-crunching here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2657491

[drone]

59. Back to 2004

As I said before after the 2004 election the next day morals dropped to last place on the TV priorities list of the repukes. The second day it was removed from the list. I had expected it to remain 3 months at least. Religious folks are easy to fool. All the repukes wanted was their vote.

[muntrv]

64. How about the recent revelations that Karl Rove badmouthed Evangelicals?

They need to be reminded how the GOP duped them.

[McCamy Taylor]

67. America voted Pro-Choice. They could not even get S. Dakota.