One of these things is not like the others.
Alone among the top-tier candidates for president, Rudolph Giuliani is refusing to discuss whether and how often he goes to church - a stance that could complicate his efforts to win over religious conservatives at the heart of the Republican base, political analysts said. In a survey of presidential candidates in both parties, Giuliani, a Catholic, was the only one to refuse to say how often he attended services, and he also declined to name a church of which he is a member. "The mayor's personal relationship with God is private and between him and God," the campaign wrote in reply to the survey, according to The Associated Press, which polled the candidates.
But in a year when candidates are being asked to discuss their faith as never before, Giuliani's position could cause him trouble among churchgoing voters who want to know that their candidate is a spiritual person as well, analysts say. [...] [James Guth of Furman University], who studies evangelical Christian voting patterns, said polls show roughly two-thirds of Americans, and a higher percentage of Republicans, believe their president should have strong religious beliefs....
Clinton, Edwards and Obama Discuss Their Faith at Forum
By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 5, 2007; A03
In an unprecedented forum, the three leading Democratic presidential candidates described how faith influences both their politics and their personal lives, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton responding to a question about her husband's infidelity by saying, "I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith."
"I've had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought," Clinton (N.Y.) told a crowd of more than 1,000 in an auditorium at George Washington University.
At the forum, organized by Sojourners, a liberal evangelical group based in Washington, Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) each stood on stage separately for 15 minutes to answer questions from moderator Soledad O'Brien of CNN and a group of ministers and religious leaders. The questions were wide-ranging, from the role of evil in the world to perhaps the most pointed of the night, when Edwards was asked to name the biggest sin he had committed. "If I had a day in my 54 years where I haven't sinned I would be surprised," he said, declining to specify. "I sin every day; we are all sinners." [...]
There's one thing the US presidential contenders all have in common: God
Timothy Garton Ash in New York
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian (UK)
We all know Christmas begins earlier every year, but imagine if it were to begin in May. And that's May the year before. This is what's happening with the presidential elections in the US. There are another 17 months until the actual vote next November, but the campaign is well under way. [...] What remains fundamentally different from the old continent is the way American politicians not merely have religion but wear it on their sleeve. An extreme example is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Answering a question about evolution versus so-called intelligent design, Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister before he became a politician, said simply: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth." He didn't know when or how exactly God did the business, but do it He certainly did. To say you didn't believe that, he added, was in effect to say that you didn't believe in God. Then he quoted Martin Luther: Here I stand, I can do no other. And he earned, from the audience at St Anselm College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Manchester, New Hampshire, a fair round of applause. In answer to a follow-up question, he said: "If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are welcome to do it."
[...] But don't think this religiosity is confined to Republican candidates. In an earlier debate, organised by a left-liberal Evangelical group called Sojourners, the three leading Democrat contenders, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barrack Obama, vied with each other in testifying to the importance of their faith. Edwards did say firmly "I believe in evolution", but he quickly added that "the hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every human being that exists on this planet". Asked a painful question about how she coped with Bill's infidelity, Hillary Clinton said she was sustained by "my faith and the support of my extended faith family, people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me"....
This is the sort of thing that makes part of me wish we were back in the good ol' days, when nobody would have dreamed of asking a candidate about their religious beliefs. Of course, those good ol' days were gone before I was born.
One of the reasons that nobody would have dreamed of asking is that a certain commonality of candidates could be assumed. White men, relatively well off or at least middle class (the self-made man appearing every now and again), and a certain shared commonality of background. A certain genteel but unstated religion and belief could be assumed, even if it might not in fact exist. (So, really, in most ways, I'm perfectly happy not to be living in those good ol' days, thanks.) Once the background of the candidates started changing, once you stopped being able to count on the candidates looking and acting much like those who were able to and did exercise the right to vote -- that is, before the 19th amendment and actual enforcement of the acts predicated by the 14th and 15th amendments meant that (GASP!) women and nonwhites were voting in notable numbers -- then the things that made a difference started to matter. And one of those things was religion.
Unfortunately, the influence of religion, and the pandering produced thereby, has gotten more and more noticeable with each passing election. And of course, right now, we've got conflicting needs. Religion per se has become such a divisive topic that a discreet silence would seem only prudent. At the same time, evangelical religions -- predicated on the very idea that religious beliefs are not private and must be publicly claimed and proclaimed -- have become so numerous that to ignore them is almost to ensure defeat. A certain religiosity for candidates is not only preferred; it is demanded The high profile of religious beliefs in this campaign, more than a year and change before the actual election, is really quite remarkable -- Giuliani and many other ostensibly Catholic politicians are being dissed by the actual Pope, for heaven's sake, for not falling into line with all Vatican decrees on social issues; the Democrats are falling all over themselves to talk about their faith in an effort to appeal to a certain sector of social moderate-to-conservative voters; the already less-than-subtle Mormon-bashing of Romney has begun.
To be sure, the types of religious issues being presented differ between the parties. The Republican candidates are tailoring their religiosity to appeal to a certain hard-core, extremely conservative bent that admits of no shades of gray; the Democrats tailor theirs for a more liberal party. (It is extremely difficult, for example, to imagine a Democrat running for national office declaring that they didn't believe in evolution, as Huckabee and every major Republican candidate except Giuliani has done.) To note that there is a difference, however, is also to note that making some sort of presentation of religiosity is important across the board.
Oddly, Giuliani and the Democratic candidates appear to be positioning themselves for the national election, rather than for the primaries. After all, both parties' primaries and caucuses are dominated by the more extreme factions. For the Republicans, to refuse to discuss religion, to refuse to demonstrate your religiosity, is to alienate the most conservative; for the Democrats, to discuss religion too much, for your religiosity to be too noticeable, is to alienate the most liberal. The moderate middle -- that is, the more liberal of the Republicans and the more conservative of the Democrats, or probably 60-75% of everyone in the country -- would probably be satisfied with a very general note of "Yes, I believe in God," without necessarily needing a lot of detail about which religion or all the effects that your religion has had on your life or public declamations and demonstrations of the details of your belief. If you're going to give more detail, they'll take it -- and possibly be distressed when it doesn't match what they want -- but they might be just as happy without it.
It will be fascinating to see if Giuliani can get away with a principled nondiscussion of his religious beliefs. I suspect he can't -- I have a feeling that, especially with the entry of the high-profile and oddly charismatic Fred Thompson into things, refusing to discuss religion is going to get him sidelined but good. There is also the grim reality that the response, "This is entirely personal and is none of the public's business," is no longer a valid response for a political candidate on most issues. When candidates refuse to discuss something, people feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have something to hide, and the news media gleefully starts digging. It may be that there's something to hide -- although in the case of religion, unless it's something terribly outre, there really shouldn't be -- or merely that it's something personal that you want to keep for yourself; nonetheless, the perception that candidates for public office should keep almost nothing of themselves for themselves persists, and trying to do so in an area as fraught as religion, these days, can only lead to problems.
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. (emphasis added)
Apparently, that last paragraph is no longer true. Oh, certainly, there's no official test -- the government has not declared that anyone seeking office must sign an agreement that they are a rightwise born and observant True Christian -- and that's all the Constitution specifically means, per se. But it's hard to argue that all these public declarations of belief are anything but the candidates completing a clearly required, if unofficial test. And it will be interesting to see if Giuliani can get away with refusing to take it at all.
Posted by iain at June 08, 2007 03:48 PM
