Here it is:
Title: The morals and values crowd
Highlight: Evangelicals turned out for Bush. Now they expect his support
Author(s): Dan Gilgoff with Bret Schulte
Citation: November 15, 2004 p 42
Section: Nation & World , Election 2004
Copyright © 2003 U.S.News & World Report, L.P. All rights reserved.
Subjects: Presidential election 2004; ELECTION RESULTS; REPUBLICAN PARTY; DEMOCRATIC PARTY; VOTERS & VOTING; CANDIDATES; POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS; POLITICAL ISSUES; SOCIAL POLICY; MORALITY; CONSERVATIVES; EVANGELICALS; SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE; BUSH, GEORGE W.; KERRY, JOHN; Rove, Karl
Word Count: 657
Abstract: Many evangelicals say they voted for Bush believing he will best support moral values
Article Text: At his first press conference after winning re-election, President Bush was asked about the deep religious divide between the churchgoing, often evangelical residents of "red" America--who voted for Bush by huge margins--and the more secular citizens of "blue" America, who backed Sen. John Kerry in equally lopsided fashion. "I will be your president regardless of your faith," Bush responded. "I don't think you ought to read anything into . . . whether or not this nation will become a divided nation over religion."
For some evangelical Christians, the response--however proper--was a slap in the face. "The president could have paused to thank all those good people who poured in and gave him power again," said James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family. "The GOP has been given four years to deliver on marriage and life and family, and if they fumble it . . . [we'll] stay home next time." It's a scary prospect, given that evangelicals accounted for nearly a quarter of last Tuesday's voters and backed Bush over Kerry by 78 percent to 21 percent.
If pollsters and the news media were caught off guard by the turnout of "values" voters (more voters selected "moral values" as their top priority than any other issue), the White House was banking on it. After Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, White House political don Karl Rove estimated that 4 million evangelicals had stayed home on Election Day; he spent the next four years making sure that wouldn't happen again. And it didn't. Evangelicals went to the polls in droves, drawn there in part by the president's support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and his signing of a ban on the procedure opponents call "partial-birth" abortion. "Even Reagan never took such positions," says Richard Viguerie, who pioneered the use of direct mail for the GOP.
Energized. Contrary to the president's conciliatory remarks last week, many evangelicals do perceive two different Americas. "This was a protest vote against the assault on our values by the secular left," says Viguerie. "Separation of church and state has become code for not letting any religious values into the public arena." Evangelical political activism has been energized by recent headlines. Gay marriage wasn't a national issue until the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively legalized it last November. Last week, initiatives to ban gay marriage on 11 state ballots may have helped drive up evangelical turnout. Kerry himself also served as a rallying point for Christian conservatives: The Massachusetts senator voted against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, supports abortion rights, and advocates federal funding for new stem cell lines. "Clinton was more at home with the Bible," says Democratic pollster Mark Penn. "He was from Arkansas, so he had more of a cultural connection" to evangelicals.
Kerry even lost to Bush among Roman Catholics--who went for Al Gore over Bush in 2000--though Kerry is Catholic. The Bush team cites this as evidence that it had reached beyond the base. "On cultural issues, swing voters look more like Bush supporters than Kerry supporters," says GOP strategist Whit Ayres.
But evangelicals were still the base, and their top priority is the appointment of conservative judges, including to the Supreme Court (story, Page 58). They think the election of four new conservative Republicans to the Senate will give them more leverage in the confirmation process. "The moderate influence has been reduced," says Rep. Michael Castle, a Delaware Republican. But it will also make it much more difficult for Bush to cut deals with the Democrats and moderate Republicans he still needs to get things done. It may have been pragmatism rather than altruism that had him calling for unity in his press conference. But in doing so, he made those evangelical supporters nervous. "You don't get on Mount Rushmore," says Viguerie, "by accommodating opponents."