Candidate Gets Very Early Start

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Rick Hendrix announced his 2010 campaign for Congress a few weeks ago. But his campaign is off to an unconventional start — beginning with the fact that he hasn’t chosen a district to run in yet.

That hasn’t stopped the entertainment industry insider from promoting his candidacy, however.

“After his speech to a corner of celebrities and political icons during Vanity Fair and Google’s exclusive, elaborate blowout finale [at the Democratic National Convention], few are left in the dark of Mr. Hendrix’s plans and aspiration as he draws a sharp distinction between his political career and his lifelong dedication as a Christian,” began a news release that announced Hendrix’s campaign soon after the convention.

“Minds are wondering and circles have been a buzz for months concerning his shift and almost hierarchy acceptance into the political dynasties of the Democratic Party,” the oddly worded release continued.

Hendrix, 38, was born and raised in Granite Falls, N.C., a town of about 4,600 people on U.S. 320 between Lenoir and Hickory. Granite Falls is in North Carolina’s 10th district, where attorney Daniel Johnson (D) is taking on Rep. Patrick McHenry (R) this fall.

As owner of the Rick Hendrix Co., the self-proclaimed “#1 Promoter in American Music” handles one-third of all Christian and “positive” music on American radio, promoted the film “The Passion of the Christ” and built an “empire that has generated a quarter of a billion record sells [sic] since the 90’s,” according to his Web site.

The Next Barack Obama?

Hendrix’s Congressional announcement was buried at the end of a Sept. 19 Washington Post article about his efforts to team with Burns Strider, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) faith adviser, to reach out to potential Democratic voters through Christian radio. Hendrix was a part of Clinton’s Faith Outreach Committee during the presidential primary, and he was a pledged at-large delegate for the Senator in Denver.

He is also partnering with Strider and former Hill aide Eric Sapp of the Eleison Group to form Faithful Media, a for-profit endeavor designed to “provide unprecedented services and support to progressive causes and Democratic candidates.”

Hendrix might be one of the beneficiaries.

“Hendrix made his political aspirations clear to party notables such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Madeleine Albright, John Kerry, General Wesley Clark, and the Clintons,” according to his initial release, which read like a news story.

Pictures of Hendrix with Democratic luminaries are available on his MySpace page, including him “escorting” Albright and Kerry out of the Google party.

The release, which was long on name-dropping and short on substance, also compared now-Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) 2004 coming-out party at the Democratic convention in Boston to Hendrix’s 2008 appearance in Denver.

“After this year’s Democratic National Convention showcase of the party’s new and rising young stars, many Democrats are hoping that lightning will strike twice with Rick Hendrix,” the release said.

By announcing his candidacy so early, Hendrix is similar to Obama, since Obama, then a state Senator, began his 2004 U.S. Senate bid before the 2002 elections.

But Hendrix continues to be a candidate without a district. It appears he wants to run in the 10th district, but Johnson is already challenging McHenry, and while he is a distinct long shot, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently added Johnson to its “Red to Blue” list, which should boost his fundraising.

For now, Hendrix is playing the part of a loyal party foot soldier and supporting Johnson’s candidacy. Hendrix considered temporarily turning his 2010 campaign Web site into a blog for Johnson’s cause, even though the two men have only traded messages and have never spoken.

“Mr. Hendrix is definitely supporting Daniel’s campaign, and I think it says a lot about what’s going on here in western North Carolina that high-profile people like Mr. Hendrix are getting involved in this race,” said Lauren Moore, Johnson’s deputy campaign manager.

Where Is Home?

Even if Hendrix had a clear shot at the 10th district, now or in 2010, it would not be easy. He was born and raised in the district, but it’s unclear where he lives now.

The Rick Hendrix Co. has offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Nashville, Tenn. Hendrix said in an interview that he lives in Granite Falls and commutes to Nashville, where his kids attend school (he is divorced).

But he lists Nashville as home on his MySpace page, where 30 photos of “My Nashville Home” are available.

“He hasn’t lived here in 20 years,” said one Democratic operative in the Tar Heel State.

Another challenge would be the district itself. The 10th district takes in all or part of 10 counties in western North Carolina and gave President Bush 67 percent of the vote four years ago. The district has also sent a Republican to Congress for the past four decades.

McHenry, 32, was first elected in 2004 to fill the seat vacated by GOP Rep. Cass Ballenger and was re-elected with 62 percent last cycle. He is a reliable Republican vote and enjoys being combative, but he broke with his party by voting against the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005.

Hendrix’s friends in the national Democratic Party — he calls Pelosi one of his “favorite people in the world” — may not be as popular in the district.

“When the curtain pulls, I can see my mama voting Republican,” Hendrix half-joked, showing some instincts about his family and the district.

“You can be a Democratic candidate and serve well without being as red as your constituency,” Hendrix said in a phone interview, adding that he thought the Clintons were a “50/50 split” in the district. “I would not hide from them because of a poll.”

Former President Bill Clinton lost the district by 20 points to Bob Dole in 1996. So why run?

“This is a new door I feel opening,” Hendrix said. “There is a learning curve for all of us. Democrats have never tried this, and I’ve never tried the political thing before.”

Going National, Tapping Employees

It’s clear that the first-time candidate will have to work to transition from promoter to candidate.

Congressional candidates don’t usually launch their bids three years in advance for a two-year term, particularly without a district.

“This is a year if you are a Democrat you’ve got a get-out-of-jail-free card with Republicans who [traditionally] don’t like the Democratic agenda,” Hendrix said about the timing of his announcement.

RickHendrixforCongress.com is live, but with minimal information.

“Thank you for stopping by. An exploratory committee has been formed for Rick Hendrix and the 2010 mid-term elections,” it says on the site. According to Hendrix, he has filed an exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission, but he is not yet raising money for a Congressional bid.

The Web site directs visitors to the “Rick Hendrix for Congress National Headquarters,” based in Washington, which could be a first for a Congressional candidate.

Most candidates are running away from D.C. these days, but Hendrix said that even though the national headquarters is not finalized, it could be a natural fit because of all the business that he conducts in Washington already.

“We serve ourselves well by having it there,” Hendrix said, “We need to be in big places and not be afraid.”

Currently, the line between Hendrix’s campaign and his company appears to be nonexistent. The contact phone number for Hendrix’s campaign is the same number listed for his company’s D.C. office. A call placed to the number was answered with an ambiguous, “Rick Hendrix’s office.” And two different staff contacts on the campaign news releases use the phone number as well as company e-mail addresses.

As his campaign ramps up, those distinctions will need to be made, because corporate campaign contributions are illegal and Democrats have been particularly critical over the past few years of Republican businessmen allegedly using their companies to leverage their campaigns.

For now, it’s all a part of Hendrix’s plan.

“We’ll engage the whole company,” Hendrix said, referring to his 2010 bid. “Anyone who works for me will work for the campaign.”

If employees do not want to be involved in the campaign (Hendrix estimates that number to be 20 to 30 out of more than 150), then they can keep their jobs on the music side, according to the candidate.

Official Launch Coming Soon

In general, Hendrix is banking on scores of people helping him after years of promoting and helping others. He believes that all or most of the 700 musical artists (about 70 percent of whom are Christian) that he represents will do fundraisers and concerts on his behalf.

Their willingness may not matter. “Hendrix has demanded that his musician clients let him stage rallies or set up informational tables for Democrats at or near their shows, whether they like it or not,” according to the Washington Post story, which highlighted some of Hendrix’s efforts during the presidential primary. “About half his artists are fine with that, he says, while the others agree somewhat reluctantly.”

Listening to Hendrix, you get the feeling that he is running a national campaign for Congress. Although it’s just in the preliminary stages, it sounds like the most massive Congressional campaign ever assembled.

His effort could officially launch as soon as Jan. 1, with the help of Strider and Sapp’s Eleison Group. Hendrix wants to go into the race with $4 million, hire “major advisers” and have an army of 10,000 volunteers. He’s also talking about 300 billboards, fliers in power bills and a book tour of 600 locations in three months during the campaign.

Hendrix plans to couple the massive e-mail list he’s built over the years with consumer information for micro-targeting. He also plans to reach out to the 34.5 million MySpace friends stretched across his 700 musical artists.

“As the night went on, Hendrix found the small posse he arrived with had blossomed into a room of the world’s most notable figures and their eyes and ears were fixed on his every word, jokes and smiles,” Hendrix’s announcement news release read. “Actress Anne Hathaway said, ‘Rick inspires and excites me about the future of our party.’”

The political world may not be ready for Rick Hendrix.

This story first appeared in Roll Call on October 9, 2008. 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Obama Maintaining Status Quo With White Evangelicals

By Nathan L. Gonzales

After months of well-publicized outreach to evangelicals, the Democratic Party and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign are struggling to outperform the normal Democratic vote.

A Sept. 4-21 Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (D) survey for Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly showed Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) leading Obama 71 percent to 23 percent among white evangelical voters. In comparison, President Bush won white evangelical/born again voters 78 percent to 21 percent four years ago.

McCain was receiving only tepid support from evangelicals before he added Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the GOP ticket. This survey provides some evidence that McCain is creeping closer to Bush’s totals with those voters.

The GQRR poll was accompanied by a memo, which highlighted how younger evangelicals were less supportive of McCain than older evangelicals. Subsequent media coverage generally focused on that point, but the results were more complicated.

McCain led Obama 62 percent to 30 percent among white evangelicals ages 18-29, compared with the Arizona Senator’s 73 percent to 22 percent advantage among white evangelicals ages 30 and older.

While Obama is doing better on the ballot test, younger evangelicals held a less favorable view of him compared to the views of evangelicals ages 30 and older. According to GQRR’s favorability “thermometer,” young evangelicals gave the Illinois Senator a 28 percent “warm” and 50 percent “cool” rating. Older evangelicals had a slightly better 36 percent warm and 48 percent cool view of Obama.

Younger evangelicals also viewed McCain, Palin and Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) less favorably than older evangelicals did.

But both Republicans were far more popular than the Democratic ticket. McCain did well with young white evangelicals (54 percent warm/31 percent cool) and older evangelicals (68 percent warm/18 percent cool). Palin also enjoyed favorable ratings among young evangelicals (52 percent warm/25 percent cool) and older evangelicals (60 percent warm/17 percent cool).

Biden received the lowest rating of the foursome. Young white evangelicals gave the Delaware Senator a 13 percent warm/41 percent cool, while older evangelicals gave him a 25 percent warm/40 percent cool.

Even President Bush scored better than Biden, including among young evangelicals who gave him a 39 percent warm/48 percent cool. Evangelicals ages 30 and older might be the last remaining voter bloc to give Bush a net positive rating: 57 percent warm/29 percent cool.

A level of caution should always be administered when evaluating polling data about evangelicals because each polling firm tends to have its own definition. In the case of GQRR, “Evangelical Christians were defined as Protestants or members of another Christian religion, and who identified as fundamentalist, evangelical, charismatic, or Pentecostal or who indicated they were born-again Christians.”

Any conclusions about young evangelicals from the survey should be even more tentative because of the survey’s methodology.

The survey started with a sample of 1,400 adults, including an over-sample of 400 evangelical Christians ages 18-29. But only 127 of the 427 sample of young evangelicals were contacted by telephone. The remaining 300 “were drawn from an opt-in Web panel that is designed to be demographically representative at a national level,” according to the firm.

This methodology means that the young evangelical over-sample is no longer “random,” a fact that GQRR acknowledged at the end of its own memo, and the margin of error listed for the young evangelical sample is statistically irrelevant.

The survey research firm noted that “Internet panels, like this one, use non-probability based sampling methods, by necessity, and these results need to be considered with that limitation in mind.”

Young evangelicals may be more conservative than older evangelicals, but more studies are needed. It is unclear whether young evangelicals will carry their current views throughout their lives or become more conservative or liberal. For the moment, however, Democrats have to be disappointed that after all of their talk and efforts, white evangelicals, as a whole, appear to be as supportive of the McCain-Palin ticket as they were of Bush.

This story first appeared on RollCall.com on October 3, 2008. 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Pentecostal Democrats Lead Party’s Faith Outreach

By Nathan L. Gonzales

After diving headlong into GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s past, the media is questioning the governor’s Pentecostal background and treating it as if it were a liability to her candidacy.

Yet for months, the media has been obsessed with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and the Democratic Party’s outreach to evangelicals and other faith voters in the presidential race. And two Democrats with Pentecostal roots have been put in charge of those efforts. So far, that has gone unmentioned.

“Pentecostalism obscured in Palin Biography,” the Sept. 5 Associated Press story headline read, clearly with an undertone that, if unearthed, Pentecostalism could torpedo her candidacy.

“Sarah Palin often identifies herself simply as Christian,” the piece began, “Yet [Arizona Sen.] John McCain’s running mate has deep roots in Pentecostalism, a spirit-filled Christian tradition that is one of the fastest growing in the world. It’s often derided by outsiders and Bible-believers alike.”

CNN sent a team of reporters to Alaska to find out more about Palin and became fascinated by her former church. “Pastor: GOP Downplaying Palin’s Pentecostal Past,” read the headline of a piece that ran on Monday night’s Anderson Cooper 360 program. “For decades, Sarah Palin went to church with people who spoke in tongues and believed in faith healing and the ‘end times.’”

Of course, all Christians do not believe in Pentecostal theology. But aside from the fact that Palin left Wasilla Assembly of God six years ago, Pentecostalism is not a fringe set of beliefs.

Palin’s former church belongs to the Assemblies of God, a denomination of 12,000 churches nationwide, including a constituency of more than 2.8 million people. It is the second largest evangelical denomination in the country, behind the Southern Baptists, and the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination.

Aside from the lack of context, the vast majority of the media coverage of Palin’s Pentecostal background has also failed to mention the roots of two key Democratic staffers involved in the presidential race.

Both Obama’s national director for religious affairs Joshua DuBois and Democratic National Convention Committee CEO Leah Daughtry boast Pentecostal résumés.

DuBois is a lay minister with a Cambridge, Mass., congregation affiliated with the United Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God, a small, largely African-American denomination with about 35 congregations in the United States and the Caribbean, not affiliated with the Assemblies of God (USA). DuBois originally worked for Obama’s Senate office before moving to the campaign.

Daughtry is chief of staff at the Democratic National Committee and heads up the party’s Faith in Action program. She pastors a small Pentecostal church in Washington, D.C., that is affiliated with the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church, the small denomination her grandfather started.

Democrats have been promoting the Pentecostal résumé item as a connection point with voters of faith who may normally vote Republican.

The second volume of the Obama campaign’s “American Values Report” featured a testimonial from “Jason H.,” a self-described “born again Pentecostal believer in the Assembly of God tradition.” Clearly the campaign would not have included his testimonial if they didn’t believe it was a credible view and an asset to Obama’s candidacy.

Religion News Service’s Adelle Banks wrote a piece Aug. 27 titled “Pentecostals leading Democrats’ Faith Outreach,” just two days before McCain’s pick of Palin was announced. But her story didn’t draw any particular curiosity, and it didn’t spark teams of investigative reporters visiting the Democrats’ churches.

In fact, countless other stories about Daughtry and DuBois have included their Pentecostalism, but if the media thought twice about it, it was in a positive sense.

Because Palin is running for office, one could make the case that her background should be more heavily vetted than a staffer. But if Pentecostalism is a fringe belief that should be shunned, then the media should question Obama and the DNC about leaving their faith outreach to a couple Pentecostal aides.


This item first appeared on RollCall.com on September 10, 2008. 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Democrats Focus on Faith Agenda, Activists Interrupt

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Democrats continued their unprecedented outreach to faith voters in Denver this week as they worked to expand the values issue agenda to include more than hot-button social issues. But after two official faith panels at the Colorado Convention Center on Tuesday, it’s clear that abortion is still a hot issue both within and outside the party.

Sojourners Chief Executive Officer Jim Wallis moderated the panel “Common Ground on Common Good,” where panelists discussed poverty, immigration and education. Fourteen “Pro-Family, Pro-Obama” signs accompanied the group on stage, a clear effort to co-opt the common language of socially conservative activists.

After initially discussing other issues, the panel finally confronted the elephant in the room. Former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer (D) spoke first about the 95-10 Initiative (to reduce 95 percent of abortions in 10 years) but was careful to include that it should be done “within the law and legal system today.”

But even though Roemer didn’t advocate for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s (Ill.) campaign clearly thought it was necessary to balance his more moderate remarks on the issue.

“I’ve been a pastor for 35 years and I’m in favor of choice,” the Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlewaite of Chicago Theological Seminary said to roaring applause, the loudest of the panel.

Just minutes after she began, two men from the audience interrupted her by shouting, “Is abortion murder?” and “Does the child have a choice?” It was not apparent whether the men were Democrats, delegates or outsiders.

“This is an example of a lack of common ground,” Thistlewaite responded. Obama campaign staff politely removed the men from the room and Thistlewaite continued to give her full remarks, making the distinction between reducing abortions and reducing the need for abortions, which she favors.

“I’m tired of all the shouting on this question. The shouting has to stop,” Wallis said following Thistlewaite, but it wasn’t clear whether he was talking about the protesters, Thistlewaite’s passionate remarks or both.

The protesters were the Rev. Lee Hartley of Clarksville, Mo., and Ron Hartman, who are in Denver all week with Operation Rescue, a conservative anti-abortion rights group. Neither man had convention credentials. And even though neither posed a physical threat, a half-dozen police officers showed up following the incident and stood in the back of the room for the duration of the panels.

The incident appears to be one of the only interruptions by an outside group at an official convention function. But the incident demonstrates the tension the abortion issue causes, even within the party. As some Democrats want to moderate the party’s stance on abortion to reach out to more conservative faith voters, the larger pro-choice contingency within the party won’t go quietly.

Two more faith panels were scheduled for Thursday.

This item first appeared on RollCall.com on August 28, 2008. 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Beware: Evangelical Polling Ahead

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Evangelicals are in the spotlight for the thousandth time this election cycle, after both Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) appeared at Rick Warren’s church on Saturday night.

But there is a significant problem with analyzing the evangelical vote. Pollsters can’t seem to agree on what constitutes an evangelical or how many evangelicals there are in the country.

The discrepancy in definition makes thoughtful analysis almost impossible because polling numbers can’t be used interchangeably. Unfortunately, the difference is lost on most reporters.

According to 2004 exit polling during the presidential race, 23 percent of Americans described themselves as “white evangelical/born again,” and gave President Bush 78 percent of their vote. Four years earlier, the exit poll showed that 14 percent of presidential voters were part of the “White Religious Right” and voted for Bush with 83 percent. The question was rightly modified between elections, because “Religious Right” is a narrower group, but the modification makes comparison difficult.

ABC News, in its polling, evaluates self-identified “white evangelical Protestants,” who constitute about 20 percent of American adults. The definition isn’t necessarily wrong, even though it excludes a small number of Catholics who might consider themselves evangelicals, but it’s another definition. Obama is winning about 25 percent of the white evangelical Protestant vote, according to ABC polling.

NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, in their polling, first ask respondents if they are Catholic or Protestant. Then they ask all Protestants and people who said they had no religion, “Would you describe yourself as a fundamentalist or an evangelical Christian, or would you not describe yourself that way?”

The result is yet another definition. This time it’s a group of 18 percent of Americans who describe themselves as “Protestant fundamentalist/evangelical,” who are voting for McCain 64 percent to 24 percent. First of all, it’s unclear how many people said evangelical versus fundamentalist, but just using the latter term probably turns off some respondents. Secondly, the NBC sample likely includes African-Americans, which makes it impossible to compare to the other samples.

Finally, the Barna Group, a religious research firm, recently released a poll that confuses the matter even further.

According to the Barna survey, self-identified evangelicals make up 42 percent of the population and are going for McCain by a narrow 39 percent to 37 percent. That is a much larger self-identified evangelical sample compared with other pollsters, and much more Democratic.

It is not entirely clear why the self-identifying Barna sample is almost double what is in the other polls since Barna didn’t release demographic profiles of the samples and sub-samples. It is likely that the sample includes a large number of African-Americans, who may have similar theological beliefs to white evangelicals but vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

But Barna doesn’t rely on self-identifying evangelicals. Instead, it asks a series of nine theological questions based on the National Association of Evangelicals’ Statement of Faith to find out who is really an evangelical.

After the test, Barna concludes that 8 percent of the population is actually evangelical. The definition may be the most pure, but it makes cross-analysis with other polls useless. Barna evangelicals were voting for McCain 61 percent to 17 percent in an August survey, compared with 78 percent for McCain in June.

An e-mail from the Obama campaign touted the survey as “great news” because the race was tightening. But 17 percent is statistically identical to the 15 percent Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) received from the group in the 2004 White House election, and it is irresponsible to make thoughtful conclusions from such a small sub-sample with a high margin of error.

Barna also separates out “non-evangelical born again” Christians with a less stringent theological test. Those voters, which would likely include African-Americans, went for Obama 43 percent to 31 percent. “All born again” Christians, presumably including evangelicals, African-Americans and some Catholics, went for Obama by a similar 42 percent to 32 percent, according to Barna.

The political behavior of evangelical voters is going to be a favorite media story for months and years to come. But as evangelicals come under the microscope more often, the more theological nuances and differences are laid bare. Until there is some sort of standard definition set in the polling world, analysis of the evangelical vote should be met with extreme caution.

This item first appeared on RollCall.com on August 20, 2008. 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New Religious Outreach Could Land Obama in Legal Trouble

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is about to launch his latest outreach to religious voters, but the name of the group could land him in legal trouble.

First reported on Friday by Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, Obama's “Joshua Generation” is designed to help the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee appeal to young evangelicals.

But “Generation Joshua,” a division of the Home School Legal Defense Association, has been established since 2003 and is pursuing legal action against the Obama campaign.

“This is an improper invasion of our trademark and we've retained legal counsel to notify the Obama campaign to stop this,” HSLDA’s co-founder, chairman, and general counsel, Michael Farris, told Roll Call on Monday morning. The conservative group planned to notify the Obama campaign on Monday afternoon.

Although recent Democratic presidential nominees have had a hard time attracting support from evangelical voters, some Obama partisans believe the candidate has broad appeal.

“There's unprecedented energy and excitement for Obama among young evangelicals and Catholics,” a source told Brody about the new group’s effort. “The Joshua Generation project will tap into that excitement and provide young people of faith opportunities to stand up for their values and move the campaign forward.”

On the flip side, “Generation Joshua is designed for Christian youth between the ages of 11 and 19 who want to become a force in the civic and political arenas,” according to the group’s Web site.

Farris believes the similarity in names is no accident.

“It's impossible to miss this, as Web savvy as they are,” said Farris, who also wrote a 2005 book called, “The Joshua Generation: Restoring the Heritage of Christian Leadership.”

Both groups, and the book, reference the Old Testament and the generation of people that led the Israelites into the Promised Land. But because the Joshua Generation and Generation Joshua are both interested in organizing youth for political purposes, Farris believes the name confusion is a violation of the older organization’s trademark.

Obama has been referencing the Old Testament story in speeches at Howard University and in Selma, Ala., so the name of his outreach effort is not a particular surprise.

Farris was an early supporter for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) in the presidential race and is awaiting Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) vice presidential choice before making an endorsement. Generation Joshua is a 501(c)(4) organization, but the HSLDA PAC has been active, making in-kind contributions to more than 30 Republican candidates — and no Democrats — during the past four years.

“If they're going to pick Biblical analogies, they should pick policies to correspond,” Farris said.


This item first appeared on RollCall.com on June 9, 2008. 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Evidence of Evangelical Shift is still Slim

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Evangelicals may be shifting away from the Republican Party, but a recent poll doesn’t offer compelling evidence to support that claim.

The poll is another example of the need to examine numbers critically and cautiously, instead of taking them at face value.

Because the media consortium’s national exit poll, conducted by Edison Media Research, did not ask Democratic primary goers if they were evangelical or born-again Christians, Faith in Public Life and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a “progressive” think tank, commissioned Zogby International to conduct its own exit poll in two Super Tuesday states: Missouri and Tennessee.

Both of these groups, along with Sojourners founder Rev. Jim Wallis, have spent months trying to build a rhetorical storyline of evangelicals running away from the “Religious Right” and the Republican Party. Given that, it’s no surprise that their poll backed up their claims.

At best, the data are inconclusive. But many are likely to conclude that the poll and memo are examples of a group trying to be too cute with numbers and language in an effort to promote their cause and lead journalists to a particular conclusion.

According to the Faith in Public Life memo, the February 5-6 survey “demonstrates the diversity of evangelical voters and the need for more thorough polling and careful analysis.” That’s a safe conclusion, of course, but the report’s other conclusions are not nearly so persuasive.

According to the poll, 34% of white evangelical voters in Missouri and 32% of white evangelical voters in Tennessee participated in the Democratic primary. The memo treats these numbers as remarkable and a dramatic development, but a considerable minority of evangelicals have been voting Democratic for several decades. A February 11 Reuters headline captured this political reality well, “Polls show some U.S. evangelicals vote Democrat.”

But instead of just putting the numbers out on their own, Faith in Public Life offered a flawed and misleading suggestive comparison to the 2004 general election. According to the memo, “One in three white evangelical voters in Missouri and Tennessee participated in Democratic primaries. Comparatively, only one in four white evangelical voters in Missouri and Tennessee supported John Kerry in the 2004 general election.”

This is one of those “apples to oranges” comparisons that simply ought never be done. You can’t compare general election voter behavior from four years ago with primary election voter participation.

Primary and general electorates are very different in both their size and makeup. And since both Missouri and Tennessee have no party registration and open primaries, any registered voter can choose which primary to participate in. That means it is virtually impossible to draw conclusions about the makeup of either party’s electorate since there are almost certainly some crossover voters from the other party, as well as Independents, in the mix.

The folks at Faith in Public Life must have known that the media couldn’t resist the story. “White Evangelical Vote for Democrats is Up,” according to an online article for U.S. News and World Report. A Christian Post story trumpeted the same analysis. While acknowledging the lack of relevant historical data, Faith in Public Life still put forth the flawed 2004 comparison that would lead reporters to their desired conclusion.

“The media is operating with an outdated script,” according to Wallis, a widely known politically liberal evangelical, “And the experience I’m having on the road confirms the data.”

Wallis, who has been a leader in promoting the political irrelevance of religious conservatives, is simultaneously promoting his new book that hinges on the notion that evangelicals are becoming less Republican. So it’s not surprising that the data and anecdotal conversations from his book tour(s) match up with his vision for the evangelical community.

The net increase of Democratic evangelical voters is only one supposed take-away from the poll. Faith in Public Life is also trying to promote white evangelicals as a critical part of the Democratic coalition.

But by polling two Bible Belt states, it’s difficult to extrapolate out the percentages of white evangelical voters to the national Democratic Party. In 2004, white evangelicals made up 51% of the entire electorate in Tennessee and 35% in Missouri, so it’s not unreasonable to think that the percentage of Democratic evangelicals will be lower in coastal and New England states.

There is also a significant problem with the margin of error and small size of the subsamples in the poll, but that didn’t stop Faith in Public Life and Zogby from trumpeting the results.

The poll showed Sen. Hillary Clinton easily defeated Sen. Barack Obama among white evangelical voters. But the sub-samples were so small (n=76 in Missouri and n=116 in Tennessee) that any conclusions are not statistically reliable. Unfortunately, a February 13 WashingtonPost.com item (“Silver Lining for Clinton: Evangelical Support”) chose to publish it anyway, as did an online article at Christianity Today.

There are even some statistical problems within the white evangelical subsamples on the survey’s question about the “broadening agenda.” Because of the high margin of error in the Tennessee and Missouri GOP primaries, it’s unclear whether a majority of white evangelicals support a broader agenda at all. In general, the question’s wording virtually guaranteed the desired result since a small number of people are against “ending poverty.”

It’s likely that some evangelicals are moving away from the Republican Party at the moment, since almost every other voter group in the country is doing the same thing. But the numbers in the Zogby poll don’t prove it.

It’s wise to be skeptical of any survey conducted for an interest group with an agenda. It’s especially wise when methodological questions abound, and when the analysis accompanying the data seems forced.

This story also appeared on RealClearPolitics on February 17, 2008.

Romney’s Michigan Showing Adds Complexity to Evangelical Vote

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Three states down, three different results among evangelical voters for the Republican presidential candidates.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won a plurality of evangelicals (34%) in Michigan, despite some reservations within the community about his Mormon religion. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee placed second (29%) and Arizona Sen. John McCain third (23%) among evangelicals.

After Huckabee’s convincing win among evangelicals in Iowa (he took 46%) and the three-way tie among evangelicals in New Hampshire, Romney’s showing is evidence that no candidate has a lock on the evangelical vote.

It also suggests that while evangelicals hold to uniting theological themes, there is limited uniformity in how evangelicals apply their faith to politics and choosing a particular candidate.

Evangelicals were a larger part of the electorate in Michigan (39%) than in New Hampshire (24%), but a smaller percentage than in Iowa (60%). South Carolina will be the next test case for the evangelical vote on Saturday.

Eight years ago, the exit poll asked primary voters if they were part of the “religious right.” First of all, what does “religious right” even mean? Second, surely there were evangelicals in 2000 who did not consider themselves part of the “religious right,” but we don’t know how many. Unfortunately, that’s the only vaguely similar question we have in analyzing potential evangelical percentages in upcoming Republican primaries.

In 2000, one-third of the Republican primary voters in South Carolina said they were part of the “religious right,” a slightly smaller percentage than similar voters in Iowa that year (37%). If that trend still exists today, it would poke a hole in the theory that South Carolina is full of uber-conservative evangelicals ready to deliver the state for Huckabee.

Different Picture of Evangelical Voters in New Hampshire

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Less than a week after former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee rode to victory on the shoulders of evangelical voters, he hit a speed bump in New Hampshire with the same group.

In Iowa, 60% of GOP caucus goers were self-described born again or evangelical Christian. Huckabee won the group with a commanding 46%. Mitt Romney finished second (19%), Fred Thompson third (11%), and Sen. John McCain tied with Cong. Ron Paul at 10%.

But in New Hampshire, McCain, Huckabee, and Romney fought to essentially a three-way tie (28%, 28%, and 27% respectively) among evangelicals, who made up nearly a quarter of Granite State Republicans.

The drop off in the size of the evangelical electorate is not surprising, but McCain’s dramatic improvement is particularly noteworthy. Tuesday’s results prove that evangelicals are not a monolithic block of voters, despite the laziness of some observers in claiming otherwise.

In Iowa, Huckabee won 56% of caucus goers who said that religious beliefs mattered a great deal to them (36% of the electorate). McCain, Romney, and Thompson all tied at 11%, a distant second. But in New Hampshire, McCain defeated Huckabee 34%-28% among voters who prioritized religious beliefs, although their share of the electorate was much smaller (14%) than in Iowa.

And among the one-third of GOP primary voters in New Hampshire who said they attended church weekly, McCain finished first with 32%, Romney second at 28%, and Huckabee third with 24%. On the Democratic side, Sen. Barack Obama won weekly churchgoers (18% of the Democratic electorate) with 37%. Sen. Hillary Clinton was second with 32%. Unfortunately, the same question was left off of the Iowa entrance poll, making comparisons difficult.

While McCain did well among evangelicals, he also easily won those who strongly supported civil unions in the state, adding even more complexity to the New Hampshire electorate.

According to one Republican observer, Huckabee’s Southern charm just didn’t play as well in the Granite State as it did in Iowa. The good news for the former Arkansas governor is that evangelicals in the upcoming battlegrounds of Michigan and South Carolina are more likely to be friendlier to his style and message than Tuesday’s flock. But only more results will determine whether McCain has newfound appeal to evangelicals or if New Hampshire is an aberration in the race for the Republican nomination.

Why Mitt Romney Can’t ‘Solve’ His Mormon Problem

By Stuart Rothenberg

Reviews from conservatives of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s speech on religion have generally been good. Former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Romney did “very, very well.”

“The words he said will likely have a real and positive impact on his fortune,” she predicted.

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt called the speech “simply magnificent,” but went even further, immodestly declaring, in a way not intended to encourage discussion or disagreement, that “anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst. ... On every level it was a masterpiece.”

Notwithstanding those assessments (and some polling that suggests he helped himself with his speech), it’s unlikely that Romney’s speech at the George Bush Library in Texas achieved his goal of convincing skeptical evangelicals that he is a candidate they can support.

Indeed, the gushing reviews once again demonstrate that many observers still don’t fully understand why evangelical Christian voters are having a problem with Romney’s Mormon religion. It’s not merely that they disagree with his church on matters of theology or, as some may believe, that they are intolerant. The issue is far more fundamental than that.

Many evangelicals won’t vote for a Mormon for president of the United States for the same reason that almost all Jews would not vote for a candidate (for any office, I expect) who is a member of Jews for Jesus. For Jews, the Jews for Jesus movement is a deceptive attempt to woo Jews to Christianity under the guise of remaining true to Judaism.

Likewise, for evangelicals, Mormons are not “Christians” in the sense that evangelicals understand the term, and by portraying themselves as “Christians,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is deceptively wooing evangelicals or potential adherents away from Christianity.

Evangelicals see Mormons as trying to blur the line between Christianity and Mormonism, just as Jews see Jews for Jesus as trying to blur the lines between Judaism and Christianity.

In each case, evangelicals and Jews would not want to elevate to high office someone who might give legitimacy to a group that passes itself off as something that it is not, and that threatens their own group.

Any president’s religious views are likely to receive attention in the national media, and the authority of the office is likely to translate to added authority and respectability for the president’s religion.

Given this fundamental belief (which is hardly irrational), when Romney said, midway in his speech at the Bush Library, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind,” he was actually reminding evangelicals who are uncomfortable with Mormonism that his election would help erase the lines between what they view as the two very different religions.

To people who have been taught as children that Mormonism is a cult and who regard some of the more unusual Mormon beliefs as heresy, one speech from Mitt Romney is not going to allay all of their fears.

For many Catholics and Jews, the idea that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is somehow a threat to evangelical Christianity probably seems absurd. But that is what many believe, and that view makes Romney’s religion a grave concern to evangelicals, no matter how much they agree with the former governor’s views or admire his values.

Anyone who has followed the internal fights of Judaism, with Orthodox Jewish authorities refusing to accept the practices of the Reform, the Reconstructionist or even the Conservative movements, should begin to understand the fundamental problem that many evangelicals have with the Mormon Church.

Many in the media portray evangelical attitudes toward Mormonism as a form of bigotry and religious intolerance akin to the anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic sentiment that was once so prevalent in this country and is much rarer these days. But it is a very different kind of concern, a concern about the meaning of Christianity.

Few in this country would disagree with Mitt Romney’s assertion at the Bush Library that, “A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should be rejected because of his faith.” And just as few would doubt his promise that, if he is elected president, “no authorities of my church ... will ever exert influence on presidential decisions.”

But Romney’s “Mormon problem” bears little resemblance to John F. Kennedy’s “Catholic problem” in 1960. Few evangelicals worry that the former Massachusetts governor will call Salt Lake City for instructions on how to proceed as president.

And Romney’s problem isn’t merely that evangelicals won’t vote for nonevangelicals. They will and they have voted for Protestants, Catholics and Jews. Some have even voted for Mormons for lower office.

Given that evangelicals see Mormonism as deceptive and an attempt to pass itself off as a form of Christianity, one speech about tolerance and the importance of faith is not likely to convince evangelicals to support Romney. I’m willing to bet that American Jews would overwhelmingly feel the same about voting for someone who is a “messianic Jew.”


This column first appeared in Roll Call on December 17, 2007. Copyright 2007 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Dean's Empty Definition of Easter

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Two recent press releases from the Democratic National Committee reflect the party's continuous struggle to understand evangelicals in America.

A March 30 press release entitled "DNC Offers Passover Greetings" included a joint statement by Chairman Howard Dean and DNC Vice Chair Susan Turnbull. The release was appropriate and timely and included their definition of the event, though it ignored the religious aspect. "On Monday night, Jews around the world will begin celebrating Passover, a week-long holiday that commemorates the Israelites' freedom from persecution and slavery."

Then, a week later, the DNC celebrated Easter with another statement from Dean, including his definition of the holiday. "Easter Sunday is a joyful celebration. The holiday represents peace, redemption and renewal, a theme which brings hope to people of all faiths."

Dean's Easter statement seems to bend over backwards not to mention Jesus and demonstrates either a misunderstanding of the evangelical community or a fear of alienating other voting blocs with religious talk.

"This press release, absent any reference to Jesus, without whom the Easter resurrection story is meaningless, is apparently a sad reflection of a 'lowest common denominator' religious outreach of the Democratic party," said Richard Cizik, Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, "Wake up and smell the Easter lilies! This kind of outreach will not pass the smell test of any evangelical."

Frankly, Webster's New World Dictionary, which is not regarded as a particularly spiritual or political source, has a better definition of Easter: "an annual Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus."

The DNC statement is striking, particularly since Democratic outreach to evangelicals is on-going (including Dean's speech at Eastern University just last week) and the importance Democratic strategists have put on using the right language to appeal to evangelicals. Democrats like to point to recent conservative evangelical leaders' attacks on Cizik as evidence that they are making progress, but based on Cizik's comments, evangelicals aren't moving en masse toward the Democratic Party anytime soon.

Dean and the DNC simply missed the target this Easter. The press release was astonishing because it's sole purpose was to acknowledge a religious holiday, yet it was painfully-worded to avoid being religious. If this press release was part of the Democratic Party's outreach to evangelicals, they probably would have been better off just skipping it altogether.

This item first appeared on Political Wire on April 10, 2007.

Should Democrats Go After the Evangelical Vote?

By Stuart Rothenberg

For some Democrats, including political strategists Mara Vanderslice and Eric Sapp of Common Good Strategies, the answer to whether Democrats should pursue evangelical voters is a no-brainer.

Vanderslice, the founder of the political consulting firm that seeks to help Democratic officeholders and candidates appeal to religious — specifically evangelical — voters, and Sapp, a senior partner in the firm, believe their party can make crucial gains with religious voters by using the right language and posing the right questions. The two Democratic consultants have received plenty of attention, and they crow that all seven candidates they worked with in 2006 won.

A recent highly publicized spat within the evangelical community, pitting traditionalists who believe that issues such as abortion and marriage should drive evangelical political behavior against those who would add environmental, human rights and economic justice concerns to the evangelical agenda, also has some liberals thinking that the Republican hold on evangelical voters is weakening.

But despite what Vanderslice and Sapp believe, the numbers suggest that Democratic opportunities among evangelicals are very limited.

Aside from a very strange Washington Post piece shortly after the November elections that inexplicably exaggerated Democrats’ gains among evangelicals in the midterm elections, most observers have noted the minimal Democratic gains among white evangelicals in 2006.

The GOP percentage among white evangelicals dropped by 4 points from 2004 to 2006, from 74 percent to 70 percent, according to exit polls. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ showing inched up to 28 percent from 25 percent.

Given the strong Democratic year and the huge Republican advantage with white evangelicals, the Democrats’ gain was unimpressive. The 2006 midterm elections were so stunningly good for Democrats that all voter groups moved toward the Democratic Party last year.

In an Atlantic article about Common Good Strategies, Sapp observed, “At a fundamental level [evangelical ministers he talked with] just want candidates to give God his due, more than they care about specific issues.”

If you know anything about evangelicals, you know this is simply wrong. A candidate’s religiosity is not enough for most evangelicals, though it may cause evangelical voters to stop and consider the political hopeful’s agenda. Instead, evangelicals care about issues and where politicians stand on them.

In this regard, evangelicals are closer to Jews (particularly observant Jews) and African-Americans than to Irish or Italian voters who already have blended into the American melting pot. A politician can wear a kippah (a skullcap worn by observant Jews), eat knishes and say that “Fiddler on the Roof” is his favorite movie, and he still won’t get Jewish votes if he opposes Israel and says he wants to Christianize America.

Republicans have spent decades reaching out to the African-American community, but they have made only minimal gains with black voters, in part because of the party’s position on affirmative action and its overall conservatism.

Evangelicals, like blacks and Jews, have a strong group identity and see themselves as outsiders from the dominant social and political culture. Since all three groups tend to be wary of one of the parties, it takes more than words — and in the case of evangelicals, “giving God his due” — to pull them away from their allies.

Those mainstream evangelicals who talk increasingly about protecting the environment or addressing poverty are not discarding their traditional commitment to cultural issues such as abortion. They are not going to support a pro-choice, pro-gay rights Democrat because he or she is an environmentalist or wants the government to help the poor.

Some evangelicals, of course, have always thought that social justice issues were equally important. But that relatively small group has leaned Democratic anyway.

Mainstream evangelicals are much more likely to try to change the Republican Party, where they already have a seat at the table, and broaden the agenda from within than to support liberal Democrats who “give God his due” or reframe the abortion question to avoid using words like pro-choice.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is given a lot of credit for talking about the need to reduce the number of abortions in this country and for talking about her personal faith, but as long as she is still the candidate of EMILY’s List, the influential group seeking to recruit and elect pro-choice Democratic women, most evangelical voters will be deeply suspicious of her intentions and distrustful of her agenda.

Ultimately, for Jews, blacks and evangelicals, politics comes down to political trust.

Evangelicals may indeed be becoming more concerned about a broader array of issues, including the environment, but they aren’t doing so because liberals or Democrats are telling them to; instead, they are listening to mainstream members of their own community.

If Democrats nominate more candidates who hold conservative views on cultural issues, the party may be able to make inroads among evangelicals. Still, as long as the party’s fundamental attitude toward issues such as abortion and gay rights is what it is, Democrats would be much better off trying to lock up suburban moderates before they waste a lot of time trying to attract evangelical voters to their party.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on March 22, 2007. Copyright 2007 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.