Are moderate evangelicals the new swing vote?

Via Rock Rebel, I came across an interesting article about how close the '04 election was and how Democrats may have some success by coopting the right's stance on traditionally conservative issues, particularly religion. This article points to a bill promoting the Bible curriculum for Alabama public schools. Surprisingly, this bill is sponsored by Democrats. More surprisingly, it's being opposed by Republicans.

Here is the key paragraph, IMO:

Democrats could similarly poach a decisive percentage of the GOP's evangelical base. In the last election, evangelicals made up 26 percent of the electorate, and 78 percent of them voted for Bush. That sounds like a fairly inviolate bloc. And, indeed, the conservative evangelicals for whom abortion and gay marriage are the deciding issues are unlikely to ever leave the Republican Party. But a substantial minority of evangelical voters—41 percent, according to a 2004 survey by political scientist John Green at the University of Akron—are more moderate on a host of issues ranging from the environment to public education to support for government spending on anti-poverty programs. Broadly speaking, these are the suburban, two-working-parents, kids-in-public-school, recycle-the-newspapers evangelicals. They may be pro-life, but it's in a Catholic, “seamless garment of life” kind of way. These moderates have largely remained in the Republican coalition because of its faith-friendly image. A targeted effort by the Democratic Party to appeal to them could produce victories in the short term: To win the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry needed just 59,300 additional votes in Ohio—that's four percent of the total evangelical vote in the state, or approximately 10 percent of Ohio's moderate evangelical voters. And if the Democratic Party changed its reputation on religion, the result could alter the electoral map in a more significant and permanent way.

It will be interesting to see how this strategy plays out as we look ahead to '06...

Comments

[PJP99]

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[Sarah]

You know part of me just wonders why we're so concerned with the Bible being involved in the public school systems when the actual educating that's going on is minimal at best.

I've grown increasingly frustrated with both Democrats and Republicans. I don't like being someone's pawn. Worse than that, I feel like Jesus is a political pawn. Just wave the Jesus card and the Christians will come running. Well I refuse to be a puppet who follows the first party who says "Our agenda is the same as Jesus'!"

I wonder when Jesus stopped being Savior and started being a political strategy.

[jazztheologian]

may we beware of being the prize that the powers are pining for...