Don't Be A Foregone Conclusion
by Will Hinton ()In the wake of David Kuo's story about the White House paying lip service to conservative evangelical Christians, I have given a lot of thought to how political parties treat their various constituent groups. It is painfully obvious that the Republican party treats conservative Christians as a foregone conclusion. And they are one of many groups like this. Isn't the Religious Left headed by Jim Wallis and his Sojournors organization a similar foregone conclusion for the Democrat party? Does anyone honestly believe that this group would ever vote Republican?
One constituent group in America really knows about this. The black community in America has long been taken for granted by the Democrats. But they are finally starting to turn the tables. Not only are many blacks across the country running for office as Republicans, but many black voters are now voting Republican for the first time. The point isn't that some blacks are now voting Republican; the same holds true if they are long voted Republican and now voted Democrat. The important thing is that politicians are now less able to get away with meaningless rhetoric and demogoguery aimed at getting the black vote.
Hopefully, we will see the same maturity in the Christian community. We are already starting to see many conservative evangelical Christians speak out about environmental issues and buck the stereotype. Maybe we will start seeing the Christian community start rejecting the demogoguery and fear-mongering rhetoric that often comes from Republican politicians.
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...are a good example of a group who at least occasionally will go against the party grain. The list is unfortunately short.
Not being predictable is probably a good thing for any voting group. It gets attention from the politicians and thus gives them a little more pull.
Of course, if a lot of group were up for grabs, it could have the unintended effect of strengthening the most powerful groups as politicians prioritize their attentions even more than they do already.
As for Sojournesrs... You're probably right about that, but it's sad that it's worked out that way. I work for an organization that works with Jim Wallis (on Call to Renewal) and from what I understand, the orginal idea of that organization was to get Christians of all political stripes together on certain issues.
One, the two party system sucks. The reality is that there should be LOTS of different political parties and anti-monopoly laws should break up the Dems and Repubs right now. While they may represent both sides of an argument, they almost never accurately represent anyone completely right, so you're forced to do some "hypocrite" voting no matter what. I think abortion is murder. I think the death penalty and the war is, too. Who do I get to vote for?
Two, I think you should never have politicians assuming people are a foregone conclusion. I think any assumptions in politics are bad - because it allows for lazy and often wrong thinking. If you want the support of blacks or Christians or whoever - you should have to go out and prove to them you deserve their support. And vice versa - if you are a black and/or Christian and/or whatever, you should have to go out and truly find out for real if a certain candidate is really worth your support - not just voting for them because you think you should as a "foregone conclusion".
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