My initial thought was if you have to devise a strategy to gain their support, that may say something about whether you have conflicting values.  But as I read more this became rather interesting.

Consultant Helps Democrats Embrace Faith, and Some in Party Are Not Pleased

As Democrats turn toward the 2008 presidential race, a novice evangelical political operative is emerging as a rising star in the party, drawing both applause and alarm for her courtship of theological conservatives in the midterm elections.

Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice, and her 2-year-old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Exit polls show that Ms. Vanderslice’s candidates did 10 percentage points or so better than Democrats nationally among those voters, who make up about a third of the electorate. As a group, Democrats did little better among those voters than Senator John Kerry’s campaign did in 2004.

10 percent may not sound like much, but it is actually a huge advantage.

“Everybody is looking at the specific steps that had value in those states, and the compass points to her and the efforts she helped lead out there,” said Burns Strider, an evangelical Christian who directs religious outreach for House Democrats and was recently hired to play a similar role for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president.

Mr. Strider said he was speaking only in the context of his current House role and declined to comment on the work with Mrs. Clinton.

Democratic officials in several states said Ms. Vanderslice and her business partner, Eric Sapp, pushed sometimes reluctant Democrats to speak publicly, early and in detail about the religious underpinnings of their policy views. They persuaded candidates to speak at conservative religious schools and to buy early commercials on Christian radio. They organized meetings and conference calls for candidates to speak privately with moderate and conservative members of the clergy.

In Michigan, they helped the state’s Democratic Party follow up on these meetings by incorporating recognizably biblical language into its platform. In Michigan and Ohio, they enlisted nuns in phone banks to urge voters who were Catholic or opposed abortion rights to support Democratic candidates, with some of the nuns saying they were making the case in religious terms.

No offense, but the Nuns run the risk of running afoul of the Vatican on that one.

And I have yet to find a valid argument to support abortion from  faith perspective.  I acknowledge that the arguments against abortion are not a slam dunk from a religious perspective, but there is no  argument FOR abortion I have ever heard that can use scripture to support it.

But Ms. Vanderslice’s efforts to integrate faith into Democratic campaigns troubles some liberals, who accuse her of mimicking the Christian right.

Dr. Welton Gaddy, president of the liberal Interfaith Alliance, said her encouragement of such overt religiosity raised “red flags” about the traditional separation of church and state.

Typical.  Why are so many liberals afraid of Faith?

“I don’t want any politician prostituting the sanctity of religion,” Mr. Gaddy said, adding that nonbelievers also “have a right to feel they are represented at the highest levels of government.”

To Ms. Vanderslice, that attitude is her party’s problem. In an interview, she said she told candidates not to use the phrase “separation of church and state,” which does not appear in the Constitution’s clauses forbidding the establishment or protecting the exercise of religion.

“That language says to people that you don’t want there to be a role for religion in our public life,” Ms. Vanderslice said. “But 80 percent of the public is religious, and I think most people are eager for that kind of debate.”

And that is a valid point.  While I agree that trying to leverage the debate is pandering to a degree, it is a valid argument that since so many people have sincere faith, they should be able to have their values and faith be a part of the national debate where the values of their leaders are concerned.

They persuaded candidates not to avoid controversial subjects like abortion, advising those who supported abortion rights to speak about reducing demand for the procedure.

Yes, the available but rare debate. 

And they cautioned against the approach of many liberal Christians, which is to argue that Jesus was interested only in social justice and not in sexual morality.

Yes, that particular debate is fraught with problems.

“The Gospel has both in it,” Mr. Sapp said. “You can’t act like caring about abortion and family issues makes you a judgmental fool.”

Most of all, they told Democratic candidates not to try to fake it, advising those of non-Christian faiths or no faith at all to talk about the origins of their sense of ethics.

And that is a strategy that is fine.  There are many people who are very ethical but are not strong in religious faith.

“People want to know are you on your knees?” Ms. Vanderslice said. “Are you responsible to something that is bigger than yourself?”

And that may be a the key issue.

Honestly it is interesting and gratifying to see the democratic insiders taking religion seriously, instead of mocking it like the nutroots do.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS