How the Democrats Got Religion

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EVANGELICALS IN MOTION
The Democrats' courtship of religious voters exploits a rare Republican predicament: disillusioned with Bush's stewardship and serial scandals, many religious conservatives see a field in which their preferred candidates can't win, and those who can win include, for now, a politically elastic Mormon; the twice-divorced, pro-choice, gay-friendly former New York City Mayor; and a maverick who called conservative religious leaders "agents of intolerance" the last time he ran. "I think that this emerging change in mind-set, at least within significant segments of the Democratic Party, could pay tremendous dividends if the Republicans are foolish enough to nominate Rudy Giuliani," says Richard Land, the Southern Baptist Convention's political guru. While a Mitt Romney nomination might suppress evangelical turnout, he says, as long as there is a basic difference over abortion, socially conservative voters will pick the pro-life candidate. "But if you take the abortion issue off the table," Land predicts, "then a lot of these other issues get oxygen they aren't getting now, such as the environment and social justice and racial reconciliation, all of which Evangelicals care about."

The best handicapper of the religious vote is political scientist John C. Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, who has studied the voting habits of the country's 55 million Evangelicals. The most conservative white Protestants, he says, are all but off-limits to the Democrats. But then there are more than 22 million voters he calls "freestyle Evangelicals," worried about not only their eternal souls but also their kids' schools, their car's fuel efficiency and the crisis in Darfur. In the past, those voters may have leaned Republican in part because the G.O.P. has been far smarter about presenting itself as friendly to people of faith while painting the Democrats as a bunch of sneering, secular coastal élites.

But the Republican lock on Evangelicals may be breaking. The percentage of white Evangelicals who self-identify as Republicans has declined from roughly 50% in 2004 to about 44% this past February, according to Green. Now the number is closer to 40% as more Evangelicals choose to label themselves independents. "There is a loosening of the Republican coalition, particularly among people under 30," Green says, "but it is not yet a movement toward the Democrats. It is a small but real change."

The Democratic Party is rekindling its relationship with Catholics as well. For years, candidates dodged Catholics out of fear that abortion would dominate the discussion. Now Democratic leaders are pursuing alliances with the Roman Catholic Church on issues ranging from immigration to the minimum wage to Iraq. Catholic voters, Democrats realize, are the loosest swing vote in the spiritual cosmos, especially as the church has become more outspoken in its opposition to the war in Iraq.

Add to these twists the fact that the leading Democrats are all married to their original spouses and all fluent in the language of faith — a shift from the era when Democrats limited their spiritual testimonies to awkward appearances at black churches shortly before Election Day. It was Obama who first signaled a shift when he spoke last year at the Sojourners/Call to Renewal gathering and challenged Democrats to make it a little harder for Republicans to paint them as godless hedonists. "If we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice," he declared. "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square."

Last month Obama was joined by Edwards and Clinton at the Sojourners' forum on Faith, Values and Poverty, where the progressive evangelical leader Jim Wallis pressed them to show some spiritual skin. Edwards explained how he reconciled evolution, which he accepts, with creationism, which he was taught growing up as a Southern Baptist. "The hand of God today," he said, "is in every step of what happens with me and every human being that exists on this planet." Clinton shared the content of her prayer life with the audience: "You know, sometimes I say, Oh, Lord, why can't you help me lose weight?" she said to sympathetic laughter. "Sometimes, you know, it's praying for discernment, for wisdom, for strength, for courage."

Clinton has been more confiding about her faith in recent months, in part because she is in an unexpected footrace for the churchgoing vote. According to a poll for TIME by Pulsar Research, Obama is viewed as a person of strong religious faith by three times as many Republicans as Clinton is, and he reaps political benefits as a result. His approval ratings in red states match Giuliani's, and while Clinton's unfavorable ratings among conservative Protestants are at 65%, Obama's hover at 27%.