In my last article, I demonstrated that advantage in promoting a same-sex marriage amendment is probably closer to 1 million than 4 million. But as the 2000 election proves, winning the popular vote is meaningless unless you also win the electoral vote. So let's try and look at the geography of American Christianity. I was trying to break it down denomination by denomination, but the good folks at the American Religion Data Archive already has the demographic information I'm looking for, splitting up conservative and liberal churches appropriately. Evangelical churches that have a liberal bend, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, are actually counted as "mainline" denominations [Update: I'm told that the ELCA was once just called the LCA and wasn't an evangelical church at some point in its history]. So rather than do a blow-by-blow account of the 87 splinter Baptist and Pentecostal groups in America, almost all of which have hard-line stances on homosexuality, if not also women's rights, abortion, race, and pluralism, I can just show you three maps: one for "conservative" Christians, for "liberal" Christians, and one for Catholics. Here is the distribution of evangelical church members:
As you can see, conservative Christian groups are heaviest in the Deep South and Mid-South. It's worth pointing out that Missouri, at 24.7%, is the least evangelical of the deep states, which is good news because it's also the most vulnerable of any of these states. But for the most part, these heavily evangelical states are states where Kerry had little chance of winning to begin with.
Let's try again, this time with "mainline" denominations:
Surprisingly, North Dakota and South Dakota are tops on this list, with several other farm states way up there. However, I should point out that while many of these denominations may have open policies, that does not necessarily mean that all their members agree with them. In fact, many of these churches are starting to splinter over issues related to homosexuality. For example, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, which welcomes gay members and is considering allowing the ordination of gays, represents over 28% of the population in North Dakota. But that's no guarantee that all those church members would vote against Bush; for example, the North Dakota Synod of the ELCA is considering leaving the organization in opposition to the current possibility that the church will vote to ordain gays. Nonetheless, it's clear that Midwest and farm state Christianity is generally a more tolerant form of Christianity.
One more map, this time of the Catholic population:
It's hard to interpret this map. Deep red states like Rhode Island, New York, and Massachusetts, are unlikely to suddenly wake up and vote on abortion issues and gay marriage; these are decidedly liberal Catholics. Likewise, it's unclear how Hispanic voters (who are overwhelming Catholic) in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California will behave. Polls show that most Hispanics agree with the Catholic teachings on abortion and homosexuality, but that was true in 2000, and they still voted for Gore overwhelmingly. In 2000, these voters went for Gore 66-33, but President Bush's soft line on Mexico may give him a slight edge. Also, Gallup polls show that the jump in Bush's approval after capturing Saddam was much higher for Hispanics than it was for the general electorate. These gains may dissipate more slowly.
So where does this leave us? A stealth voter mobilization campaign using direct mail, Christian radio, and the network of conservative preachers might be used to selectively mobilize the entire Christian Right and half of the center, putting states like Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and perhaps Louisiana out of play for the Democrats. It might also make it more difficult to compete in Florida, though voter registration efforts among blacks bitter at disenfranchisement during the 2000 election may counteract that effect. Conservative Evangelicals make up over 40% of the population in AR and OK, plus over 25% in TN. On the flip side, centrist and liberal Christian groups make up over 20% of the population in MN, IA, ND, and SD, plus 15% in WI. So stealth mobilization campaign against the gay marriage amendment could also be used to put new states into play ... especially with a potential sweep among the 3 representatives from South Dakota.
Coming next: I have yet to talk specifically about the impact of mobilizing gays and lesbians themselves. I'll look at the impact of mobilizing the entire gay population of the United States to vote against George W. Bush.
You play to win the game. Hello! You play to win the game.
-Herman Edwards
As Bush continues his "rally the base" efforts this spring, GOP campaign managers and spokespeople keep claiming that Bush's real problem in the 2000 election wasn't the center, it was the base; they speculate that 4 million evangelical Christians stayed home because Bush wasn't conservative enough. Here's a Washington Times article that mentions this number. I went to try and figure out how realistic Rove's figure is, and I think I have some bullet points to suggest that it's unrealistic.
So I conclude that the "4 million evangelicals" are largely a figment of Rove's imagination, and more of that "Washington fuzzy math" that Bush railed against in 2000.
Coming next: an attempt to determine where, if anywhere, this cultural wedge issue will affect swing states. We'll look at the demographics of some individual church denominations.
Gallup has a new Kerry-Bush snapshot. This is a decent matchup of "character" questions. Some important highlights:
The important takeaway is that these numbers are still likely to be very fluid, and just because Kerry has a big net rating on, say, honest and trustworthy, doesn't mean he can rest on his laurels. Reassuring the American public that you are who you say you are is a constant struggle. Especially when you're from the party of Slick Willie and Al 'Exaggerator extraordinare' Gore.
Ben Chandler (D) defeated Alice Fogely Kerr (R) in the special election for Kentucky's 6th district, with much heavier than expected turnout. Both parties spent heavily on this election, with several House Democrats loaning money to the Chandler campaign, and the DCCC going all out to promote the election. But the cutest trick is probably the direct mail attack. While fundraising over direct mail doesn't appear to work as well for the Dems as it does for the GOP, the message to 'send President Bush a wake-up call' seems to have done the trick. Direct mail, while annoying, doesn't garner the media coverage that television ads do. As a consequence the impact of "negative campaigning" isn't as large as a huge TV buy, but it means the press is less likely to pick up on the attack and call it "dirty politics".
Republicans are already downplaying the impact of Chandler's victory. To be fair, Chandler had good name recognition, as the grandson of former governor and inneffective baseball commissioner "Happy" Chandler (is it me or does that name sound like something out of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?) and 12 year veteran of local politics, including an unsuccessful run for governor. The NRCC claims they'll have better luck in South Dakota, but the only poll on this election suggests that Herseth is doing quite well. Of course, Herseth is a third generation politician as well, so I'm sure if she wins in June we will hear that she had name recongition advantage there, and we really need to wait until November to find out what people really think.
We're still early on, but I've been sitting on this map for too long.
The legend for this map should be pretty self-explanatory. The redder the state, the more it went for the Republicans; the bluer the state, the more it went for the Democrats. All Nader votes were assumed to be Gore votes (in practice, this is a bit unrealistic, as Nader will still probably get 1-2% in the upcoming election, and a few votes were probably from wacky wraparound Republicans, but it is a decent starting point). As I mentioned before, Bush's travel schedule has him on the defensive; he hasn't made any visits to Iowa or Wisconsin or Minnesota recently at all.
The deepest colored states are those that went in favor of their candidate for 10% or more, the next lightest, between 5-10%, and the lightest, 0-5%. Here is the breakdown of electoral votes by how committed those states are to their candidate.
It looks like Kerry is in slightly better shape than Bush -- the Democrats must defend only 92 electoral votes, while the Republicans must defend 126.
Josh Marshall is going through the same mental gymnastics that I am regarding gay marriage. The Republican's language is really straight out of the 1960s and 1970s. Step 1 is to blame the courts; since the courts, as unelected bodies, can easily be blamed for ignoring the popular will of the people and promoting their own agenda (to some extent, this is the reason we have courts -- as a safety valve against majority tyrrany and legislative stupidity). Step 2 is to re-cast civil disobedience as law-breaking (I have mixed feelings about this one; personally, I always prefer more traditional channels for alterning the law). Having not lived through any of the 1960s, I can't actually tell if this is in fact playing out in the same fashion. But if it is, it's another potential wedge for progressive causes. I think, at least politically and electorally, that the backlash from the 1960s (and 1970s) is very, very, real, considering the legislative and judicial assault on abortion and civil rights, among other things. Thus it would seem to me that it is Edwards, not Kerry, who has the more pragmatic progressive stance on the gay rights issues; he opposes gay marriage (though he is always careful to say that this is personal opinion), he doesn't talk about civil unions, and he supports "moving forward" by providing domestic partnership benefits for committed same-sex couples. Kerry, meanwhile, actively has to come out against gay marriage, not just on a personal level but as a matter of policy.
On one hand, it's really hard to argue with pictures of ordinary Americans smiling and hugging and putting rings on each other's hands. On the other hand, given the stigma attached to homosexuality just 15 years ago, these pictures aren't entirely "ordinary". On one hand, token steps towards improved gay rights seem like the safe way to go. On the other hand, books like 58 Lonely Men document that the schools most successful in integrating peacefully were those that integrated most quickly, and with the most direct support from local political leaders and law enforcement. On one hand, gay characters are appearing frequently in the media; be it on TV, the movies, or books. On the other hand, it's not like the people getting married look like Carson, or Thom, or Willow, or even Kerry Weaver.
I have a headache. Oy.
A look at Bush's travel schedule suggests that Bush is very much on the defensive at the moment. For the most part, Bush's recent travel schedule includes trips to states that he won, not lost, in 2000. Ignoring the "follow that Democrat" trips, Bush has made recent appearances Missouri, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana. Laura Bush is on a three day fund-raising bender that takes her to Nevada, Arkansas, and California. Ignoring California (since the trip just goes there to extract money, more than get publicity), five of the remaining six states on this list were in the Bush column in the last election. The only state that went to Gore, Pennsylvania, is Bush's most frequent rest stop, other than Crawford, Texas, so presumably the Bush team believes that this state is the best investment of their time. We're still in the "too early to tell" stages of things, but it really does look like Bush is spending more time on the defensive than on the offensive at the moment. (It should be noted that the Bush team is sending his emissaries on offense. Economy-types are in Washington and Oregon to tell us how great outsourcing is for the economy). This bodes well for November, as Kerry can battle Bush in his territory, and not the other way around.
To be honest, I don't understand who thought that the "follow that Democrat" trips were a good idea. They look like nothing but campaign events, so while they may have a decent innoculative effect in the individual states, they look positively wretched in the national press, and all he's got to say is that the Democrats want to raise taxes. It is telling that he stopped playing the game after the February 3rd primaries.
SurveyUSA has some frustrating news. In a poll of registered voters, Bush leads Kerry by 8% in Arizona, with 4% undecided--thus probably a 9% or 10% difference. This is a serious gap, and unless turnout seriously does not match the registration numbers, it seems difficult to imagine the Democrats making up that gap. Cross Janet Napolitano off the list of potential Vice Presidents.
A snapshot of Indiana elections at the national level, 1988-Present
Now, granted, we are probably in the "trough" of Bush's popularity at the moment, but this underscores the point: Indiana, which was Bush's 12th easiest win and his only Midwestern win, is at the moment close enough that swaying the minds of 3% of Indiana voters would turn the state towards the Democrats for the first time in ages. In an of itself, that fact is astounding.
It might be tempting for the eventual nominee to nominate Evan Bayh, the former governor of Indiana, who is currently the chairmain of the Clintonian Democratic Leadership Coalition. However, it would be a mistake to choose a running mate based on the polls at the "trough" of Bush's popularity. More likely, the eventual nominee should wait until things calm down in the late summer primaries before figuring out whether to pick from the crowd of whispered names from VP.
Salon is running an article on Kerry's Southern strategy, based largely on surrounding himself with war heroes, as a pre-emptive challenge to attacks on his patriotism. There's this quote:
Reality tells another story. Even among Democratic primary voters -- a voting bloc almost entirely sure to vote against Bush in the national election -- Virginia exit polls show Edwards is the candidate who fares better among white voters than among non-whites, while Kerry trounces him among non-whites. Tennessee exit polls show a similar story. Things will not get easier for Senator Kerry in the general election.Kerry's supporters, at least, see themselves making inroads into typically solid GOP voting blocs like Southern whites and veterans ...
Kerry might ... might, make some marginal inroads by talking about his days in 'Nam, but he can make even more inroads by putting Edwards on the VP ticket. Picking up the minority vote will not be a problem in the general election: picking up working class white voters, and to a lesser extent upper middle class white voters, will.
I was going to write a long article examining the exit polls from various states -- mostly Virginia, Arizona, Tennessee, and Missouri -- that showed that Kerry might have problems in a national election. Essentially, Democratics who look more like Republicans: self-reporting conservatives, independents, weekly church goers, and people who thought taxes were the most important issue, -- tended to lean towards Clark or Edwards. However, Will Saletan has basically taken then words out of my mouth. There are lots of voters out there in the primary who say they will be dissatisfied if Kerry wins the nomination. And these are not Dean-or-Green types: these are people who want Clark or Edwards to be president, and who are more likely to vote Republican if they don't get their guy.
Armchair pollsters may be also be interested in the exit polls from the 2000 election, which suggest that the best way for Bush to win will be to rachet up the number of people who think that foreign policy is the most important issue, to hope that their candidate attacks less, and to somehow appear as someone who is "trustworthy" and "cares people like me" again. Also, it's worth noting voters are actually split about 20/50/30 along liberal vs moderate vs conservative identification, rather than the 20/40/40 number that is usually given.
Seems to be "don't attack your opponents before the weekend".
In Iowa, Dean and Gephardt spent the weekend before the caucus screaming at each other for their positions on free trade, the Iraq War, health care, and probably any number of things. Both campaigns plummeted in the polls, while Edwards and Kerry, who had much more positive messages, rose sharply. The lesson seems to be that being on the attack for the entire weekend gives many voters a chance to see you as a bad guy, without having a chance to hear what you have to say.
Of course, many things are different now from the way things were in Iowa. For one, in Iowa, Kerry ran a direct mail ad attacking Dean and Gephardt, pointing out that they both wanted to repeal the entire Bush tax cut. Kerry, meanwhile, wants to preserve the tax cut for families that make less than $200,000. This "stealth attack" went largely unreported in the national press. Likewise, in New Hampshire, Kerry pulled the same trick in attacking Clark.
Over the weekend, Edwards and Kerry started taking small jabs at each other -- Edwards attacking Kerry on free trade, Kerry attacking Edwards inexperience
It would be nice if the candidates could have a real debate where they challenged each other on
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 11:29 13 February 2005
