In Daniel Gilgoff’s article, Why the Religious Right is Stuck with McCain, two claims are maid. The first, and less important, is that McCain is a candidate that strays quite a bit from the values held by the evangelical Christian voting block. He argues this effectively, but focuses more on a second issue: that Mitt Romney did not secure the Republican nomination for president because evangelical leaders failed to speak out on his behalf.
What is interesting about this is that this echos fairly strongly the 1960 presidential election between JFK and Nixon. In his book With God on Our Side, William Martin presents the idea that Nixon lost the election because Billy Graham failed to speak out publicly (and explicitly) on his behalf. He makes the case that, historically, the religious right—as a voting block—follows the advice of religious leaders. This seems to be an accurate representation. High-profile religious leaders, according to Gilgoff, failed to talk about religion’s role in politics, and Romney lost the nomination.
Furthermore, Miller speaks to the role JFK’s Catholicism played in his race for president, and how he was able to overcome the “fears” of the religious right through open conversation about their possible issues with his faith. This is fairly similar to the issues many people had with Romney’s Mormon faith. The religious and political identity of the religious right seems to be relatively consistent with the same group of the 1960s, and unlike JFK, Romney was unable to assuage their fears.
There are strong parallels evident between the 2008 presidential election (and the primaries leading up to it) and the 1960 presidential election with regards to the religious right. Miller’s book provides us with a history of this voting block and claims that it holds much power when it comes to politics. This seems to hold true in today’s political landscape. As Gilgoff’s article shows, the religious right and its leaders are still very influential, and the historical trend Miller presents falls in line with what we see today.
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It is interesting to view the 2008 primaries in relation to the 1960 election and I think that the connections are valid and clear. However, in 1960 the religious right was fighting for an evangelical and against a "minority religion" and in the case of Mitt Romney, they were arguing on behalf of the Mormon. In 1960s the religious leaders were preaching against change and trying to keep their followers to maintain the status quo, in 2008 they had the opportunity to argue for religious tolerance and acceptance in the form of Mitt Romney. I think the fact that they didn't argue more strongly on his behalf says something about how little progress we have made in the past half a century.
While I must admit that I have not read the book you reference and am not well versed in what the religious right did in the 1960 election (though we all know the difficulity Kennedy's Catholicism posed in his run), I must say I'm not convinced there is much of a parallel between Romney and Nixon as it pertains to why they did not win. Among other things, the religious right as we know it is a relatively recent construct; Billy Graham has always stayed out of politics for the most part (except on things like civil rights), and most evangelicals actually originally supported Roe vs. Wade. Things like Moral Majority and people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are the ones responsible for the modern "religious right". Some would argue this religious right supports elements of theonomy and theocracy; again, this idea being seen on such a large scale is a relatively recent phenomenon-people were afraid of Kennedy exactly for this reason, they thought he would be taking orders from the Pope. I think its all a moot point though, because I'm pretty sure the real reason Nixon lost that election was dead people voting in Chicago, and because he appeared unshaven, sweaty, and looking sinister in the first televison debate where Kennedy looked nice and had makeup on, and even though most agreed he won the debate on issues, people who saw it on TV seemed to think Kennedy won. As a side note to the comment above mine, I'm almost positive religious leaders in the 1960's were fighting for a protestant, not an evangelical; Jimmy Carter was the first evangelical preisdent.
After reading Gilgoff’s article, I was stuck on this paragraph:
I would have loved for some Christian leaders to have said, 'We have a Mormon running for president and we have a Baptist preacher ... but who really reflects your values?' " (French) says. "Should you vote only for a Christian?" French is right.
No, French is half right. It would be great if Christian leaders voted for whoever really reflects their values and then questioned if a candidate’s proclaimed religion had anything to do with the election. (BTW, Mormons follow Christ, making them Christians.)
The question should be: should you only vote for a religious person? All the candidates envoke God and claims to be Christian. McCain, Palin and Obama have all changed churches as soon as their elections began to make sure they were the “right kind of Christian.” To me, this tells me nothing of their faith except that it can be bought and traded liberally in any attempt to win an election. (Biden, a Catholic, has remained at his church for his entire political career.) These empty words and a simple label of “Christian” are not enough.
What if we looked at where the candidates stood on issues important to our own faith? Where do they stand on helping the poor, the sick, the young? Do they yell blasphemous statements? Do their actual actions offend my faith? If religion must be brought into a decision of this magnitude, Christian leaders should guide their flock to seek a personal “fit” for a candidate. That way, candidates won’t be so tempted to mold themselves into the “right kind of Christian” depending on the circumstances.
Yes, there is a parallel between Romeny and Nixon, but one that does not hold up: Romney seems to be more of an amalgamation of Nixon and JFK. His Mormon faith puts him in the same shoes as JFK, and his lack of support from major "religious" figures puts him in Nixon's shoes. But what I think the author and poster fail to realize is the problem was not the religious leaders but Huckabee. Huckabee splintered the vote even when it was quite apparent that Romney was a stronger candidate than he. Huckabee may have done this out of support for McCain (a view supported by the irregular occurrences during certain primaries where McCain supports spontaneously switched to Huckabee) or simply out of pride or personal belief in standing up even when one is going to lose. Either way, Huckabee adversely affected Romney more than anyone else.
To address the blog poster above me, Billy Graham has been involved in politics and was quite close to Nixon during the 1960 election. He did however go out of his way to make it seem as though he was unbiased: he asked Nixon to burn letters in which he gave him advice on how to win over protestant and evangelical voters.
I feel that Logan succinctly summarized the article quite well and followed it with an amazing parallel. The 1960 election resembles ours today in so many ways and Logan hit on many of them, mostly using vague generalizations from both elections. Additional concrete examples from the past would have added tremendously; a reference to John F. Kennedy’s meeting with southern ministers in Houston would have worked wonders in helping to support the religious right’s strong influence in the 1960 election. The comparisons to those in the past, mainly of John F. Kennedy and Billy Graham, while general were also strong and put this year’s election in an interesting perspective. Logan ended strongly, stating how the religious right does not seem to be going anywhere.
I agree with Landon when he says that Romney is actually a slight mixture of both JFK and Nixon. Romney was practically forced to give a speech just to explain his faith, as was JFK. Some of the difference though is that in the 60’s it was a Catholic issue, and this last year it was a Mormon issue. I believe that the Mormon church is further away from American acceptance than the Catholic church was at that time. There was really no way that Romney would have secured an evangelical backing, especially with a candidate like the very evangelical Huckabee also in the race. Although Mormonism is considered a sect of Christianity, the differences in beliefs are almost too much so for them to be on the same plane.
I disagree with some of the assertions made in the article, Romney did not necessarily lack support from influential leaders in various Christian institutions. Romney was fairly successful in the early phase of the nomination cycle in his attempts to persuade leaders of his pro-life stance and opposition to gay marriage. While this support may not have been equivalent to the support received by Mike Huckabee, it was certainly more than that received by the now Republican nominee, John McCain.
The parallel between Romney and Kennedy is perhaps, more applicable as the Romney campaign was frequently forced to confront the uneasiness of America with a Mormon candidate. Polling throughout the election suggests that this area of concern was one that Romney was ultimately, unable to overcome.
I agree with Logan very much that the tie between the religious right and political victories today are still very much connected. My question is of course about our right-preaching VP candidate herself, Miss Sarah Palin. I wonder, given the information explored in this article, had Sarah Palin been running for president, what the likelihood of her being elected would be. I ask because, when McCain announced her as his running mate, his number grew significantly because he now had a ploy into the hearts of (gulp) religious-right fanatics. This is important because the article and this point display a scary truth in the political atmosphere of America today that religious leaders and not the people are deciding on our president. It may be a different issue entirely about blind fellowship, but I think it is a reality we need to address. Should we simply be encouraging an influx in the quantity of votes we seek, or should we be encouraging quality votes and putting effort into educating those that are interested so that religion doesn’t have all the power? Should a candidate’s character really be left for one church to decide? How does that affect the basic rights we are allowed such as equal representation and no establishment of religion? I am afraid of where we are going because it is back to where we have been…
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