One of the bits of common wisdom that emerged during the period between the last two elections was that White Evangelical voters were the key to George W. Bush's reelection and thus the Democrats would need to actively court such voters if they were interested in winning in future contests. To this end, it was thought that the Democrats should find issues upon which they agreed with such "faith voters", most notably the environment.

If November 7 showed us anything, it was that the Democrats clearly do not need the suppport of Evangelical voters in order to create an electoral majority. And a report by Neela Banerjee in today's issue of The New York Times should put to rest the theory that the religious right is at all interested forging any semblence of compromise or comity with progressives, be it on social issues or even issues such as the environment.

The president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America, which has long served as a model for activism for the religious right, has stepped down, saying the group resisted his efforts to broaden its agenda to include reducing poverty and fighting global warming.

The Rev. Joel C. Hunter, pastor of a Florida megachurch, was named the group's president-elect in July. He was to have taken over the presidency in January from Roberta Combs, who is also the chairwoman of the Christian Coalition's board. Mrs. Combs will continue in both positions now.

[...]

"We're a political organization, and there's a way to do things, like taking a survey of your members and seeing what they need," [Combs] said. "Joel had a different way of doing things, so he just went out there."

[...]

[Hunter] said that many evangelical leaders hewed to narrow moral issues because they were "deathly afraid of being labeled a liberal by other Christians, the media, talk radio."

Now it is certainly true that the Christian Coalition does not speak for all Christians or even all Evangelicals. In fact, the Coalition probably has less clout today than it has had in many years. Nonetheless, the reluctance of the Coalition's leadership to expand its range of issues beyond those it has contested in years past is likely indicative of the sentiment of momement supporters as a whole. As I've noted before, religiously observant voters were significantly less open to voting Democratic this year than other segments of the broader population, with those who attend church more than weekly barely budging at all, moving to the Democrats by a net 8 less points than the general electorate. White Evangelicals supported Republicans to the tune of 70 percent.

While some will no doubt continue to tell us that the Democrats that they need to give up on some of their issues (particularly ones relatiing to abortion and equal rights for all Americans, including homosexuals) and that can steal away "faith voters" from the Republicans by appealing on issues like the environment, it should be plain to any serious watcher of politics that not only do the Democrats not need to do this but that by doing so the Democrats threaten to lose whatever gains they made earlier this week. That is not to say that the Democrats should not keep an open tent, but only that the so-called "low-lying fruit" among Evangelicals (those who theoretically are aching to vote Democratic -- but only if there is outreach) aren't quite as low-lying as many believe.

There's more...

Just released Clarkcast!

Direct download podcast.

Via iTunes

Via other methods

The transcript.

The dynamics between Clark and Boxer are simply amazing. Two exceptional human beings touching on several topics.

On Iraq:

   General Wesley Clark: It's a terrible tragedy and I'm glad that you and all the other Democratic senators are seized with the issue because one of the things the American people still...I think there's people out there that don't understand that Democrats have not only strong opinions but great ways of leading this country on Foreign and Security policy. We can keep this country safe.

   Senator Barbara Boxer: I agree. And, by the way, you personify that if I might say, General. I...your whole life has been spent really protecting America and you understand this. And there's such a difference between the rhetoric that you hear from the administration and their policies which are making us less safe. You know, they stand up and they scare the American people and yet do nothing about protecting our nuclear power plants from a terrorist attack, a chemical plant, the rails, even the air. They could do much more, but anyway...

   General Wesley Clark: And it's competence.

   Senator Barbara Boxer: We could digress and have this whole ClarkCast about this.

There's more...