A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on November 6th, 2008 in Campaign News

The Washington Post didn’t include me in it’s panel, but I’m going to give an answer anyway.

The Republican problem is that they have too small of a God. Their God of choice remains the God of white evangelical voters in the South. That’s fine with me – it’s their choice to make and I believe God is big enough to deal with evangelicals, Mormons, mainline Protestants, Catholics, and everyone else. But for a political party, it’s a very poor choice.

The evangelical God is jealous and exacting and doesn’t brook any sort of compromise. That locks the GOP into a never-say-okay position where they are right. Period. If you agree with them, that proves they are right because God has worked his love on your heart. If you disagree with them, that proves they are right because God has yet to work his love on your heart and you are lost in sin. Only by taking a firm opposition against you can they lead you to the straight and narrow. Again, that’s fine theologically, but that brand of religious paranoia fares poorly in politics.

Consider that the Pew Research Center conducted a poll two years ago that said 69% thought liberals had gone too far in the church/state separation, but 49% thought that conservative Christians had gone too far, as well. Apparently, Elizabeth Dole didn’t get the memo that said only 20% think the Democratic Party is unfriendly to people of faith.

Further down, you see the real problem for the GOP. 60% of White evangelicals think the Bible should be the primary source for American law. Only 16% of mainline Protestants think that and 23% of Catholics. Despite some 67% of Americans agreeing that America is a Christian nation, only 32% overall think the Bible should outweigh the will of the American people.

According to Pew’s exit polls this week, McCain got votes from 73% of White evangelicals. That percentage drops to 65% of “other Christians”, and drops again to 54% of “non-evangelicals”. But McCain lost the Catholic vote (45%), the Jewish vote (21%), “other faiths” (22%), and “unafilliated” (23%).

What happened is that the coalition between intellectual conservatives and the Christian right became a purity movement among the conservative Christians. It was no longer good enough to swear fealty, they wanted extreme loyalty. There’s a lesson there for the Democratic majority, by the way.

As far as the WaPo’s panel, I think Geoff Garin gives the best answer:

First, who thought it was a good idea to spend the last week of the campaign railing against “spreading the wealth”? Americans understand that during the Bush years the rich got richer and the middle class got poorer, and they are angry about it. When McCain went on (and on and on) about his moral indignation that Barack Obama wanted to redress that imbalance, he was indignant about the wrong problem. His tone-deafness only confirmed that on economics, he saw the world through George Bush’s eyes.

Second, saying that “government is the problem” was okay for Reagan’s inaugural, but it was politically untenable in today’s economy. Exit polls Tuesday showed that, by an eight-percentage-point margin, voters said that government should be doing more rather than less — an 11-point swing from four years ago. The Republicans were even less competitive this year than in 2004 among those who want government to be involved in solving problems. Americans may be skeptical of government’s effectiveness, but they want it on the playing field. They don’t think the GOP does.

Third, while Republicans may have gained some momentary advantages by engaging in the culture wars (and might do so again from time to time), in the longer sweep they have paid a steep price by identifying themselves as wanting to turn back the clock on what many Americans, especially younger ones, accept as progress that comes with changing times.

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