For years Democrats have warned that religion and politics don’t mix. You’d expect them to say that because Democratic voters are secular. Democratic voters don’t mix religion and politics. In fact they don’t really “get” religion at all. If they feel a religious impulse they call it “spirituality.”
The trouble is that the American people are religious. That makes it difficult for Democrats to win elections. But now things are changing. Hillary Clinton is talking about her faith. John Edwards is organizing conference calls with progressive religious leaders, and Barack Obama “has run six faith forums in New Hampshire,” according to Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy in TIME.
In this campaign season, if Clinton and Barack Obama and John Edwards are any measure, there will be nothing unusual in Democrats’ talking about the God who guides them and the beliefs that sustain them.
Gibbs’ and Duffy’s article about the Democratic focus on religion in this campaign cycle is a classic. It takes an issue that has been a problem for Democrats and tells a heartwarming story about how Democrats are learning their lesson and reaching out to the people, working to understand the problems they are wrestling with and nodding approval for their solutions.
It makes you wonder. What would it be to live in an America where the mainstream media was sympathetic to all religion, not just the religion of Democratic presidential contenders?
But can Democrats pull it off? After all, they have spent the last generation riling up their base against organized religion. Now, all of a sudden, they care about religious people and their concerns. Can they really turn on a dime like this and make it work?
Or are they trying to have their cake and eat it too?
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