As political experts prognosticate about the coming 2006
off-year elections, one issue is missing from the political
skyline.
Byron York observed recently in the New Republic,
“These days GOP lawmakers are polling behind Democrats on issues
like health care, education, and the deficit. National security is
pretty much their only strength — and now Bush has hurt them on
that.”
The Economist provides a similar analysis: “For the
Democrats, this is a great opportunity. For years, they have
enjoyed a consistent advantage over Republicans on the ‘mommy’
issues, such as education and health care. But Republicans have
trounced them on ‘daddy’ issues, such as killing terrorists and
defending the homeland.”
Where have moral values vanished to? No one seems to talk about
that dark horse issue that popped in the 2004 exit polls anymore.
For Democrats, this is a godsend. For Republicans, it is the result
of a fatally inept inventory of their electoral strengths and
weaknesses.
The problem started shortly after the 2004 election, when some
of America’s sharpest and most respected opinion leaders set about
systematically to debunk the surprising role moral values played in
determining the outcome of that campaign.
David Brooks, writing in the New York Times, declared
the moral values voter a “myth.” Over at the Washington
Post, Charles Krauthammer said moral values voters were a
“myth.” In his book God’s Politics, liberal evangelical
activist Jim Wallis called moral values voters, you guessed it, a
“myth.”
Okay, we get it. We’re not supposed to believe in the moral
values voter. But has anyone bothered to tell the nearly 30 million
evangelical Christians and conservative Mass-attending Catholics
who actually did cite “moral values” as their top
political issue that they don’t really exist? Something tells me
they might have a different take on the matter than do Messrs.
Brooks, Krauthammer, and Wallis.
And boy, could Republicans use those 30 million voters right
about now. Republicans, however, appear to have breathed in too
much of that “moral values myth” exhaust and have place
conservative Christians on the “pay no mind” list.
The only people interested in building coalitions with
conservative Christians these days are environmentalists. And the
only politicians interested in speaking their language are
traditional liberal Democrats, desperate to alter their irreligious
public images.
Last month 86 evangelical Christian leaders embraced an
initiative to fight “human induced climate change.” The endorsement
came after years of intense lobbying on the part of secular
environmentalists. While this Evangelical Climate Initiative
represents only a tiny minority of evangelicals, the conversion of
some high-profile Christian leaders to a cause normally associated
with liberal politics has provided inspiration to other liberal and
secular organizations to try and build bridges with this vital
segment of the body politic.
Elsewhere, Democrat politicians have amended their lexicon to
include more of those putative moral values “code words.” Just in
time for Lent, a group of 55 Democrat Catholics in the House of
Representatives released a Catholic “Statement of Principles,”
which in fact doesn’t really state very many principles, but
employs some very Catholic language.
These Catholic Democrats “embrace the vocation and mission of
the laity.” They “believe the government has moral purpose.” They
even quote Pope John Paul II. It certainly sounds like
they get it now.
And where are the Republicans in all this? Senate Majority
Leader Bill Frist has promised conservative Christians the Senate
will vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment in the early summer.
This vote will come nineteen months after some 30 million Americans
cited moral values as their issue of greatest concern in the last
election and only five months prior to the next. Sen. Frist’s
motives may be honorable, but his timing might lead some to believe
Senate Republicans are taking one more bucketful from the well of
political pander.
Meanwhile, as Tony Carnes has observed in Christianity
Today, evangelical Christians are about the only voter
subgroup in America that still overwhelmingly favors President
George W. Bush and his agenda.
But if Republicans take them for granted, or worse, if they have
truly convinced themselves that their political base is a “myth,”
perhaps next year President Bush will have to exchange Biblical
passages with Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
