Time will tell whether Democratic efforts will actually impact evangelical voter habits, but one Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist seems a bit skeptical.
David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer believes that at least those in Colorado will stick to the Republicans. Horsey attended New Life Church, formerly led by Ted Haggard. After a lengthy description of a megachurch worship service, he describes his talk with New Life’s associate pastor Rob Brendle.
The pastor thinks the country needs “a morally principled diplomat in the White House” like Mitt Romney, not a religious leader like Mike Huckabee. Nothing would be worse for Christian conservatives than a candidate who scared the rest of America with too much focus on his faith, he said.
The cartoonist then wanted to know, “What about the Democrats?” since the Democrats have been making an emphasis on religion in their campaigns. Horsey writes that the pastor laughed and said he’d seen it before. He was in a meeting with John Kerry in 2004 where the former candidate pulled a New Testament. The pastor said nobody bought it then, and it won’t work this year, either.
“If Hillary has suddenly started reading the Scriptures, then I’m glad she’s reading the Scriptures,” Brendle said, but evangelicals are sticking with the Republicans.
However, Clinton has long been in the Methodist tradition, and as President Bush’s former speech writer Michael Gerson wrote back in the fall, she is neither secular nor awkward about her faith. Either way, I don’t think anybody believes evangelicals will be overwhelmingly wooed to vote for a Democrat, but many are pleased that the Democrats are using the words faith and politics in the same sentence.
