Seven Myths About Faith & Politics

Beliefnet had this interesting article.

Myth 1: Evangelicals all vote Republican.

People often confuse the words "fundamentalist" and "evangelical." Fundamentalists are very conservative and almost entirely Republican because they view the deterioration of traditional morality as the primary public policy crisis. But fundamentalists are a subset of evangelicals, which is a more diverse group.

There are about 8 million to 10 million [moderate evengelicals]. This group went for Bill Clinton 55 percent to 45 percent over Dole in 1996 and 55 percent to 45 percent for W. over Gore in 2000. That's a swing of about a million votes.

Myth 2: The religious right flooded the polls for George W. Bush in 2000.

Turnout among the members of the "religious right" (that's the goofy way pollsters make people self-identify) was 56 percent, says Green, only slightly higher than the national average-and actually lower than that of devout Catholics, mainline Protestants, and Jews.

Myth 3: Bush's religion talk has appealed to his base but has alienated moderate swing voters.

Myth 4: In this era, no candidate would lose votes just based on his or her religion.

The groups with the most political baggage were atheists, evangelicals, and Muslims.

Myth 5: Most religious extremists are in the GOP. --

Statistically speaking, secular people (atheists, agnostics, etc.) are extreme, too, in the sense that they are well outside the public opinion norm. They tend to be Democrats.

Myth 6: Hispanics are conservative.

Professor Green has found a big difference between Hispanic Catholics and Hispanic Protestants, with the latter group more conservative than the former. American Hispanic Catholics, it turns out, aren't that religious. Professors Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio put voters into three groups according to religious intensity-"traditionalists," "moderates," and "secularists." Only 10 percent of Hispanics turned out to be traditionalists-this fraction in the African-American community was much larger. So, Republicans shouldn't assume that issues like abortion will lure large numbers of Hispanic Catholics.

Myth 7: The key to the Catholic vote is abortion.

John Kennedy beat Nixon among Catholics by 54 percentage points, and Hubert Humphrey beat Nixon by 26 points; but Reagan won them by 21 points, and from that day forward Catholics were "in play." Clinton won them by 20 points in 1996, but Gore did by only 6 points. So, figuring out how to appeal to swing Catholics is important. For Bush, then, it's important that he still tout "compassionate conservatism," not so much to appeal to conservative evangelicals as to appeal to swing Catholics.

So far Republicans have been far more sophisticated at understanding religious voting patterns than Democrats have. I suspect it's because religion gives the willies to a lot of secular liberals, who just happen to be the folks who run political campaigns and cover them for the media.