My friends in the Democrat Party (and I do have such friends!) often miss an important point in their analysis of the future of the conservative movement. More people are identifying as conservative, but not as members of the Republican Party. Blame Bush and his spending if you must, but this is a real trend.
It is bad news if you work for the GOP, but most of these new “independents” are going to vote for the more conservative person in a race. There are more conservatives, in fact, in the United States than Democrats. A conservative party that appeals to right-of-center moderates not only can win, but usually will win nationally.
Young evangelicals, in particular, are still pretty traditional on hot button issues. I see no creeping socialism in their lives . . . but they don’t like be labeled GOP or even “conservative.” They prefer “moderate” or “independent,” but when they vote tend to vote a good bit like their parents . . . as last years Presidential year polls showed. In a horrid year for the GOP with a dreadful candidate for young Evangelicals in McCain, young white Evangelicals went with the oldster.
Talk about the ‘death of social conservatism’ should take that into account. If 2004 was the best year for the Republicans and white Evangelicals (as a percentage), 2008 was not that bad and presents no evidence of a sea change. Of course, white Evangelical Christian college professors have been looking and arguing for this change overwhelmingly since I was a student so long ago, but I don’t see it.
November 4th, 2009 | 8:36 am | #1
In a horrid year for the GOP with a dreadful candidate for young Evangelicals in McCain, young white Evangelicals went with the oldster.
McCain was the first candidate since I’ve been of voting age—I voted for Dole once and W. twice—that I picked from the primaries and rooted for the whole way. He was as much as anyone ever was my candidate.
I confess part of his appeal, to me anyway, was how hated he was by factions on both sides of the aisle.
In the end, I voted and then essentially stopped caring about the outcome. I spent enough political preoccupation during the 2000 election debacle to know how idolatrous I can be about it, and I refuse to go back. And I see it every election cycle, the redundant optimism of “This time it’s gonna be different!” And of course it never is.
The church bears a lot of the blame for Obama’s success, especially among young evangelicals. Folks my age were raised by evangelicalism to trust in horses and chariots. It has now backfired that they favor different riders than their parents. But the core value, the idol of “We’ve got to get the right man in the White House to make this country good again” coming from the Christians who voted for Obama, is pure evangelicalism.
Sorry for the rant.
I hate politics.
November 4th, 2009 | 4:46 pm | #2
Part of the problem with the 2008 election analysis from some quarters is that they assume that it had to be moderate Republicans voting for Obama to get him elected, when the reality is was the high turnout from black liberals and moderates and the extremely low turnout from conservatives who weren’t willing to vote for McCain. All the exit polls showed this (and there were election observers on both sides recognizing it), but you still got the narrative from a lot of pundits that 2008 demonstrated a move toward the left among Republicans.
I think the same factors were present in 2006 to some degree also, but the main issue there was outrage at the corruption that the current reigning party has simply taken over and implemented themselves as their reward for being put in power to remove the GOP.
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