I’m no expert when it comes to analysis of political trends, party politics, or electoral strategy. But Tuesday’s election seems noteworthy on a couple of points. And as we’ll see, certain Catholic bishops may have played a central role.
First, this election was decidedly not an affirmation of liberal policies or liberal politicians. For starters, the now partyless Joe Lieberman defeated Ned Lamont. The liberal Republican Lincoln Chaffee also lost.
The election was a vote to replace Republicans, who have controlled the Congress for twelve years and the White House for six. This is usual for sixth-year elections, as Ramesh Ponnuru points out : "In the last nine sixth-year elections, the president’s party lost, on average, 34 House seats and seven Senate seats." This year, the replacement was only possible because the Democrats ran fairly conservative candidates and hid Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi from the public eye the month before the election.
Of course, one of the leading conservatives and the brightest defender of the poor and unborn was defeated: Rick Santorum. For many in the NARAL and LGBT lobbies, this was a scalp they’ve long coveted. But notice who they had to enlist to beat Santorum: a pro-life, Catholic democrat: Bob Casey Jr. And consider Harold Ford, a self-described "Jesus-loving, gun-supporting believer that families should come first, that taxes should be lower and America should be strong." This is a Democrat . And, although Ford lost his race in Tennessee, he is typical of the candidates put in place to run. Jim Webb, who defeated the Republican incumbent in Virginia, is another clear example of this. Moderate to conservative Democrats were the ones who won contested elections. Liberals did not.
Thus, while Republicans lost seats, liberals didn’t really gain seats, although veteran radical liberals gained power, in the form of congressional control, made possible by the victories of the moderate members of their party. The sad reality is that those citizens who were comfortable with a Casey, Webb, or Ford now will have to suffer along with a Speaker Pelosi and Chairmen Leahy, Rangel, Kennedy, and Schumer. The Senate turning blue could prove to be a significant setback on the road to a reformed Supreme Court, as it will be on a host of other issues.
The "God Gap"? It all but disappeared. As Amy Sullivan notes , "Americans who attend religious services on a weekly basis voted 51 percent for Republican candidates and 48 percent for Democrats, a statistically meaningless difference." Yet this shouldn’t been seen as a ringing endorsement of the Democratic party’s leaders or much of the leadership’s platform. The Democrats won with a message of Jesus-loving, gun-supporting, and tax-cutting. I doubt that Pelosi and Schumer have secretly embraced this message as well.
Make no mistake about it: Voters were frustrated because of Iraq, scandals, and political ineffectiveness, but they were not embracing liberals.
There were some bright spots, however. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) passed. It was a popular-vote ballot initiative in response to the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. MCRI, in essence, bans preferences based on "race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or gender." It does away with so-called "reverse" discrimination. Conservatives rightly view this as a victory.
Likewise, citizens in seven states voted to uphold the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. These marriage initiatives passed on average with 61 percent of the popular vote. Only in Arizona did a marriage initiative fail, and that seems largely due to a disinformation campaign scaring non-married opposite-sex couples into thinking they could lose health benefits. It was decidedly not an embrace of same-sex marriage.
Sadly, the Missouri "anti-cloning" cloning amendment passed. And again, this "victory" wasn’t rooted in an honest presentation and discussion of the issues ; rather, it was the result of voter uncertainty about what the amendment entailed, how it defined cloning, and fear that, if it didn’t pass, Missourians wouldn’t have access to future stem-cell cures. Given all the disinformation, all the campaigning, ads, and biotech money thrown in to support the amendment, it’s quite telling that, while it passed, it did so by only the slimmest of margins. This wasn’t a vote to embrace embryo cloning and destruction.
I think the marriage victories should be a lesson to everyone. Seven new states passed constitutional amendments supporting real marriage. With one exception (Arizona this year), every time a marriage amendment has been put to the electorate in the form of a popular vote it has passed with a large majority. Same-sex marriage or its equivalent (under a different name) has succeeded only through judicial fiat. To prevent judicial imposition, twenty-seven states now have constitutional amendments explicitly rejecting same-sex marriage. And all but a few have statutory provisions doing the same. Tuesday’s marriage amendments passed even in Colorado and Wisconsin. Wisconsin was the state the LGBT activists focused on and were most certain was going to go their way. What happened? Why did these states uphold marriage?
Maggie Gallagher explains : "Why? Look at the Catholic vote. Sixty percent of Catholics in Wisconsin support the state marriage amendment, much higher than in a state like Virginia (where Catholics voted “no” 48 percent to 52 percent). Can the Catholic vote on marriage in Wisconsin be repeated in other states? Increasingly that’s where the political battle is going to lie."
Why did the Catholic vote turn out in favor of marriage? Part of it has to do with leadership and part of it has to do with message. Bishop Morlino, Archbishop Chaput, and Bishop Sheridan have to be congratulated for educating their flocks and getting them to act. While many are familiar with the names of Chaput and Sheridan and their consistent public voice on the intersection of Catholicism and public life, many aren’t familiar with Morlino. He has provided an unswerving voice in Madison, Wisconsin, on the moral truths affecting public life . And the Sunday before the election, he wanted to be sure his message was heard loud and clear: He had all the priests in his diocese play a recorded message of his exhorting the faithful to witness to the truth on three important ballot initiatives¯ marriage, capital punishment, and embryonic life . Morlino was forced to use a recorded message because certain priests in his diocese had refused to preach truthfully on these issues. When the secular press tried to make an issue of Morlino’s meddling in politics, blurring the line between church and state, or coercing his priests, Morlino didn’t back down. Rather, he used the media to make his arguments more forcefully and persuasively. It seems to have worked.
And that is a lesson to take away from this election. Mud-slinging, attack campaigns, partisan politics, and the blame-game work in a handful of cases in the short term, but making positive, clear, consistent, defensible arguments, with charity and prudence, will prove more successful long term. (It should be noted that George Allen in Virginia did the former and not the latter. He also lost.) Catholic bishops can lead the way. It isn’t a question of Republican or Democrat; it’s a question of certain moral truths and the common good. The clear principles of Catholic social thought and the rationally accessible¯and highly persuasive¯lines of argument from natural-law philosophy provide better grounds for discussion of how to order our lives together. Morlino, Chaput, and Sheridan know this. The electorate seems to be listening and responding.
This is also why a Republican like Michael Steele was able to perform so remarkably well in the blue state of Maryland. Moving into the future, particularly the 2008 election, this will be the trend. Politicians from both political parties will be more conservative, including Republicans, who, during their two-year exile, will sober up and embrace more fully the basics of political conservatism. They will lead the way with clear, positive, and rationally persuasive arguments making the philosophical case for a principled conservative polity¯and social issues will play a central role.
Ryan T. Anderson is a junior fellow at First Things . He is also the assistant director of the Program on Bioethics and Human Dignity at the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, N.J.
