Christian conservatives' power diminished ahead of 2008 vote by Stephanie Griffith
Wed Apr 11, 11:29 AM ET
Christian conservatives -- kingmakers in the last two US presidential elections -- may have less success in getting their pick elected in 2008, political observers say.
The backing of the religious right was critical in electing President George W. Bush, in 2000 and 2004, and in handing control of Congress to his Republican party.
The last presidential election, in November 2004, even is said to have hinged on the "values voter," who gave particular weight to religious and moral issues.
But the powerful Christian right bloc saw a reversal of fortune in the November 2006 midterm balloting that handed control of Congress to the rival Democrats.
Experts said conservative evangelicals, so effectively galvanized in 2000 and 2004, were simply disaffected in 2006.
"George Bush would have lost both elections without the evangelical vote," said Carson Mencken, a professor of sociology at Baylor University, a leading Baptist institution in Houston, Texas.
"In 2006, they didn't turn out, and it cost his party the Senate and the House of Representatives."
Among the many reasons Christians failed to turn out in 2006 was the growing rift with the president on policy priorities.
"It had to do with issues of immigration and ... feeling that he was too compromising on some social issues," Mencken told AFP.
Whether the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination can reinvigorate evangelicals' enthusiasm is an open question. There is no clear heir-apparent to Bush, conservatives' standard bearer, although the race for the White House is in full swing.
"There is no real frontrunner for evangelicals right now," Mencken said. "It's hard to tell where that voter is going to go."
None of the top contenders -- including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, US Senator John McCain (news, bio, voting record), former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney -- has generated much excitement among evangelical Christians so far. That augurs a possible repeat in 2008 of the conservative Christians' lackluster 2006 turnout.
Other conservative contenders like US Senator Sam Brown and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee meet with Christian conservatives' approval, but are not given good odds of winning the Republican nomination.
"If the Republicans don't nominate a candidate who is at least acceptable to Christian conservatives, it will be very hard to maximize the number of votes," John Green, a senior fellow in religion and American politics at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington, told AFP.
Said Mencken: "They take a look at George Bush and they see a guy that talks about faith, and talks about his walk with Jesus."
But in sizing up the 2008 Republican president field so far, he said, "they see a guy like McCain, who really can't speak that same language. He just doesn't carry the argot of the evangelical very well."
Christian conservatives, he said, ultimately will throw their support behind whoever the Republican nominee turns out to be, but "not with the same intensity with which they supported George Bush."
That tepid support could suppress turnout at a time when rallying voters to the polls is key for either party, given the narrowly-divided electorate.
Pundits said some central concerns to evangelicals -- abortion, gay marriage -- have taken a backseat to Iraq, which is likely to remain the top issue during the upcoming primaries and general election.
In 2004, the presence of gay marriage initiatives on ballots in several key states drew conservative Christians to the polls. But experts said it seems unlikely that a similar issue will emerge in 2008.
Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition, said it is far too soon to write the epitaph of the evangelical political movement, despite its failure to fully marshal its resources in the last election.
"2006 was an off-year," she said. "I think not only evangelicals, but Republicans across the board were fed up with Washington, they were fed up with scandals," she said predicting that Christian conservatives would reassert themselves in 2008.
"A candidate cannot win in the primaries without the evangelical vote," Combs said.
"This rhetoric people are putting out there about the 'values voter' not being important any more -- I think that's just rhetoric." |
