God gap shrinking.
--------salon.com war room
It's not just Mark Foley, but the Washington Post reports this morning that the Republicans' "God gap" appears to be shrinking. Voters who've backed the GOP in recent years because they agree with the party's position on social issues like abortion and gay marriage are thinking twice because of the war in Iraq, because of what some of them see as a failure to deliver the spoils they thought they had coming and because of the way that House leaders have handled the House page scandal.
The Post offers lots of anecdotal evidence, but the polling from the Pew Research Center strikes us as the most compelling piece of the argument. While Republicans still hold what the Post calls a "commanding lead" among people who attend church more than once a week, Republicans and Democrats are now in a dead heat when it comes to vying for the favor of weekly churchgoers. Two years ago, the Post notes, Republicans held a double-digit lead among those voters.
We don't know how much of a toll Foleygate will take over the long run, but the war in Iraq is clearly a drag on the GOP's support now. Among white evangelical Protestants, the Post says, support for the war in Iraq has dropped 13 points -- from 68 percent to 55 percent -- over the course of the last month alone.
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washingtonpost.com
"Lynn Sunde, an evangelical Christian, is considering what for her is a radical step. Come November, she may vote for a Democrat for Congress.
Sunde, 35, manages a coffee shop and attends a nondenominational Bible church. "You're never going to agree with one party on everything, so for me the key has always been the religion issues -- abortion, the marriage amendment" to ban same-sex unions, she said.
That means she consistently votes Republican. But, she said, she is starting to worry about the course of the Iraq war, and she finds the Internet messages from then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to teenage boys "pretty sickening." When she goes into the voting booth this time, she said, "I'm going to think twice. . . . I'm not going to vote party line as much as to vote issues..
Even a small shift in the loyalty of conservative Christian voters such as Sunde could spell trouble for the GOP this fall. In 2004, white evangelical or born-again Christians made up a quarter of the electorate, and 78 percent of them voted Republican, according to exit polls. But some pollsters believe that evangelical support for the GOP peaked two years ago and that what has been called the "God gap" in politics is shrinking...." |
