Democrats Lost the Faith of Religious Voters (the Rahm Emanuel loser effect)

rollcall.com ^ | Nov. 17, 2010 | Nathan L. Gonzales, Roll Call Contributing Writer

[Liz]

Ever since Barack Obama uttered the words “awesome God” in his 2004 convention speech, Democrats embarked on a multiyear journey to convince voters of faith. But any inroads Democrats made with religious voters over the past four years were essentially washed away in this year’s midterm elections.

Voters of all religious persuasions were consumed by the economy and took out their frustrations on the party in power, but according to multiple Democratic sources, the party’s outreach to faith voters is just a shell of what it once was.

The wave of evangelicals that former Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed predicted this fall never materialized, but once again white evangelicals made up one-quarter of the electorate and voted heavily Republican.

Democratic candidates won 28 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2006, and Obama took 24 percent of the group in 2008, according to the national exit polls. A couple of weeks ago, Democratic candidates received only 19 percent of the white evangelical vote compared with 77 percent for Republican candidates.

The drop-off was even more stunning in a place such as west Tennessee where Roy Herron could be the poster child for Democratic faith outreach. "I’m a truck-driving, shotgun-shooting, Bible-reading, crime-fighting, family-loving country boy,” Herron said in one of his campaign ads. He’s a former Methodist minister who has authored multiple Christian books. He also lost his race in the 8th district by a whopping 20 points to a gospel-singing rancher named Steven Fincher (R).“I think most people thought that both of us shared their faith and their faith values,” Herron explained in an interview Tuesday. “But people wanted to send a message, not a man.”

Illustrating this cycle’s tough terrain, Herron’s 39 percent of the vote was short of both Obama’s showing in 2008 (43 percent) and even Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s 47 percent in the 2004 presidential election. “You’ve had scandal after scandal, and I think Christian people are saying: ‘Enough. One-party government, a monarchy, is not what we want. We’re ready for change,’” Herron said in an October 2006 CNN interview posted on his YouTube channel. Four years later much of that sentiment came back, but in reverse. --SNIP--

[Liz]

ANALYSIS You must remember this. It was ‘94 when the pols all started carrying Bibles and talked about their "family values?" They couldn’t define “family values,” but if they needed them to get elected, then for sure, they had them, and talked up a storm about them........to dupe the voters.

THE RAHM EMANUEL LOSER EFFECT Well, that was the work of conniver--- Obama's ex-COS----Rahm Emanuel. Before he got the bum's rush out of the WH, 4-term Congressman Rahm was beatified as the man who masterminded Dems takeover of Congress and WH.

AND GET THIS Cong Rahm ran "Our Common Values PAC" and chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee 2006-07. Rahm had Dems winning in solid Republican districts running as "true believers." The GOOD NEWS is ALL those Rahmified Dems are gone in the blitz of Nov 2. Rahm duped the voters again and again----he had Maoist Candidate Ohaha saying things like, "I want to be another Reagan."

THIS JUST IN-----PELOSI ELECTED TO MINORITY LEADERSHIP Pelosi's bitter clinging to leadership and its perks is nauseating. The Tea Party's takeover of politics rested on several premises---one of them is that there should be consequences for one's actions. Pelosi's arrogance and insistence on being leader flies in the face of the overwhelming results of Nov 2......that Americans wanted DEMS o-u-t.

[Siena Dreaming]

A majority of Catholics voted for Dems 2 years ago.

It is scary how many religious people can be won over by the socialistic, Huey Long-like, social justice message.

[WebFocus]

RE: Democrats Lost the Faith of Religious Voters

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What kind of “faith” are these religious voters exercising anyway?

[724th]

“What kind of “faith” are these religious voters exercising anyway?”

The Blind kind of course.

[MEGoody]

The Dems out-reach to people of faith was all a sham. Anyone who fell/falls for it is too stupid to be voting in the first place.

[Red6]

Yes it is.

With many Christians there is even this belief that somehow the socialist message is in harmony with what God wants, which of course is complete nonsense.

[Alex Murphy]

A majority of Catholics voted for Dems 2 years ago. It is scary how many religious people can be won over by the socialistic, Huey Long-like, social justice message.

It's like they have no objective standards to rate a candidate on.

[Hunton Peck]

All the Dem “outreach” (i.e., political sales and marketing) was washed away by the pro-death 0bamacare vote.