Abortion and the Dems
 Steven Menashi :: 12/26/2004

Many people discount the power of the so-called "cultural issues" -- and especially of the abortion issue. I see it just the other way around. These issues are central to the national resurgence of the Republicans, central to the national implosion of the Democrats... the Democrats' national decline -- or better, their national disintegration -- will continue relentlessly and inexorably until they come to grips with these values issues, primarily abortion.
That's from Bob Casey's 1996 autobiography. Francis X. Maier remembers a time when "being a Catholic meant being a Democrat," which was before Governor Casey was denied a speaking slot at the 1992 Democratic convention. Maier calls the recent election "The Revenge of Bob Casey." William McGurn, who prefers to call it "Bob Casey's Revenge," writes:
In the aftermath of Senator Kerry's defeat the Democrats are wondering how it is that the first Catholic nominee for President since 1960, a man who spoke glowingly of rosary beads and his days as an altar boy, lost the Catholic vote, lost the Mass-going Catholic vote by an even larger margin, and lost it by larger margins still in key swing states such as Florida and Ohio.
McGurn asks, "As Democrats emerge from the electoral rubble, must not a few be noticing that Bob Casey has proved to be prophetic?" Evidently, several have. Former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer, whom the LA Times calls "an abortion foe who argues that the party cannot rebound from its losses in the November election unless it shows more tolerance on one of society's most emotional conflicts," is running for DNC chairman with the support of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Party leaders "are looking at ways to soften the hard line." The LA Times makes this out as a point of contention in the fight to be DNC chairman, with Roemer and Howard Dean on opposite sides. But Dean too has been urging the party "to embrace Democrats who oppose abortion," the NY Times reports.

Meanwhile, Kevin Drum is bewildered. But Jim Wallis, writing before the election, gets it:

There are literally millions of votes at stake in this liberal miscalculation. Virtually everywhere I go, I encounter moderate and progressive Christians who find it painfully difficult to vote Democratic given the party's rigid, ideological stance on this critical moral issue, a stance they regard as "pro-abortion." Except for this major and, in some cases, insurmountable obstacle, these voters would be casting Democratic ballots.

Ironically, the Republicans, who actively and successfully court the votes of Christians on abortion, are much more ecumenical in their own toleration of a variety of views within their own party.

Wallis connects Christian concern about abortion with other "life issues" such as capital punishment and poverty. Which is more evidence that religious voters are at home in the Republican Party largely because Republicans are the ones who welcome them. John Kerry, apparently, has recognized the symbolic importance of the abortion issue in reaching out to these voters. (A Democrats for Life blog launched November 5.) But his party is caught between its activists and a growing segment of the public.

An Evangelical Left?
Steven Menashi :: 12/22/2004

About a month ago, William Stuntz wrote this piece about political common ground between red-state evangelicals and blue-state liberals: "Helping the poor is supposed to be the left's central commitment, going back to the days of FDR and the New Deal. In practice, the commitment has all but disappeared from national politics... I can't prove it, but I think there is a large, latent pro-redistribution evangelical vote, ready to get behind the first politician to tap into it."

Today, Nicholas Kristof observes that the most indefatigable advocates of liberal humanitarianism are now found on the Christian right:

Members of the Christian right...are the new internationalists, increasingly engaged in humanitarian causes abroad -- thus creating opportunities for common ground between left and right on issues we all care about... Liberals traditionally were the bleeding hearts, while conservatives regarded foreign aid, in the words of Jesse Helms, as "money down a rat hole." That's changing. "One cannot understand international relations today without comprehending the new faith-based movement," Allen Hertzke writes in "Freeing God's Children," a book about evangelicals leaping into human rights causes.
Hertzke, in a recent interview, noted that evangelicals' human-rights advocacy has led to tensions with "business conservatives" and "proponents of realpolitik." It seems that a religious revival wouldn't necessarily be a gift to the political right, if only the left were not so resolutely secularist.