ShareThisBy YONAT SHIMRON
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Like many evangelical Christians, Jason Fletcher isn't thrilled about voting for Republicans in the coming elections. The way he sees it, Bible-believers helped Republicans win the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and the presidency, yet the party's accomplishments have been disappointing at best.
Still, on Tuesday, he will vote Republican again.
Democrats might be poised to win a majority of state capitols, perhaps even Congress, but they likely won't do it with the support of evangelical Christians, most of whom say they will hold their noses and continue to vote for the party they helped bring to power in 2004.
"Right now, the Republican Party is still the best choice on matters of life and embryonic stem-cell research," said Fletcher, a pastor who is starting a church in Morrisville, N.C.
A recent Pew Research Center poll confirms Fletcher's predicament. It shows that white evangelical support for the Republican Party has declined to 54 percent this past July compared with 74 percent in the days after the 2004 elections. Yet despite a broad sense of disillusionment with the Republican Party and with President Bush, evangelical Christians are sticking with the GOP.
That means the key to Democratic victories could lie in evangelical turnout. Although they might not vote for Democrats, evangelicals may stay away from the polling booths Tuesday, lowering the numbers that turned out for Bush and his party in 2004.
"It becomes a turnout game," said Andrew Taylor, professor of political science at North Carolina State University. "The question is: Is the basic discontent going to turn people off?"
Whether it is the government's response to the ongoing war in Iraq, the failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform or the Mark Foley congressional page scandal, evangelicals have given middling scores to the party in power. Some are dismayed by a charge in David Kuo's new book, "Tempting Faith," that Bush administration staffers privately dismissed evangelical Christian political activists as "nuts" and "goofy."
Voter turnout is expected to be low.
Still, many groups such as Called2Action, a Wake County, N.C., church coalition, are trying to revive interest. The group published a voter guide. Its political action committee published a list of endorsements.
"I know many of us are frustrated with our leaders, but staying home on November 7th to 'send them a message' is irresponsible and reckless," Chairman Steve Noble wrote in an e-mail message to members. "If you do that, you will be enabling the efforts of many people who do not cling to our biblical world-view ..."
Noble just returned from South Dakota, where evangelical Christians are pressing for the passage of a statewide referendum that would ban virtually all abortions. The legislature there already has passed such a ban, and many within the evangelical movement think that if the referendum passes, it could finally force the U.S. Supreme Court to re-examine Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that provided for legal abortions.
