Go Team Jesus

by digby

Kevin highlights a post by Rebecca Sinderbrand on the Showdown ’08 Blog in which she posits that evangelicals will look at the Kuo book like this:

…Kuo’s story — if it’s believed at all — wouldn’t affect the way voters like my mom feel about the president. And the White House-based account definitely wouldn’t have an impact on how they view the GOP-controlled Congress, which doesn’t make much of an appearance in the book. So what sorts of questions does it raise in their minds? How about: Why did this come out three weeks before the election? Who’s plugging this story? And: is there any reason to trust them?

Here’s your answers: This story — which people they trust dismiss out of hand — comes by way of a turncoat. Even if it is true, the words of some nameless White House aides, and a couple of missing numbers on a spreadsheet, aren’t enough for to make them question long-standing frindships. Meanwhile: the fact that these charges are emerging in mid-October makes them feel manipulated. And sure, that kind of manipulation makes them angry — but not at the Republican party.

…I think the only possible ballot-box impact in the short term, if any, could be a rare bit of good news for Republican congressional leadership: Even the suspicion of an “October surprise” at work might be enough motivate some evangelicals who might otherwise have stayed home to turn out for the GOP.

I have no special knowledge of evangelicals, but I suspect she is correct. Their identification with the Republican party seems to me to be tribal ID and religion as politics. (I sure haven’t seen many cases where religion trumps politics anyway.)

Frankly, I have no choice but to also doubt their sincerity as Christians — and so, by the way, does David Kuo:

Part of the problem, he says, was indifference from “the base,” the religious right. He took 60 Minutes to a convention of evangelical groups – his old stomping ground – and walked around the display booths, looking for any reference to the poor.

“You’ve got homosexuality in your kid’s school, and you’ve got human cloning, and partial birth abortion and divorce and stem cell,” Kuo remarked. “Not a mention of the poor.”

“This message that has been sent out to Christians for a long time now: that Jesus came primarily for a political agenda, and recently primarily a right-wing political agenda – as if this culture war is a war for God. And it’s not a war for God, it’s a war for politics. And that’s a huge difference,” says Kuo.

I’m pretty sure they like it that way. It’s competitive, it’s fun — and it has nothing to do with religion. Democrats who try to appeal to them are chumps. They don’t care about Jesus (you’ll recall he was very, very big on helping the poor.*) They care about beating Democrats.

I continue to believe they will vote in their usual numbers this election. If we win it will be because the independents will vote for us and the non-evangelical Republicans will stay home.

*as are most decent Christians. The Christian Right, however, is not in the least bit interested in poor people.

.