To Win, You Need 50%

It’s still Holy Week. I was struck by an item on the "NBC Nightly News" last week (April 7). It said Christians had just had to absorb three (nasty) surprises: 1) The Da Vinci Code’s soaring popularity and its author’s triumph in a London court, 2) the fossil discovery of a “missing link” between sea- and land-based reptiles, and 3) discovery of a 2nd Century “Gospel of Judas” that painted Jesus’ betrayer in a favorable light. For some reason, the story editor decided to leave out publication of a fourth “surprise”—a scientific finding that prayer had no healing effect on heart disease victims.

I have three comments: 1) negative MSM stories on Christianity usually come out during Holy Week, not the week before, 2) the “missing link” story is way too much of an inside joke, since it has to relate, literally, to the “Darwin” fish-with-legs metal symbol anti-Fundamentalists often affix to the rear of their Volvos, and 3) MSM separation from American religious faith is going to cost Democrats.

One who wouldn’t agree is Kevin Phillips, well-known political commentator and author of American Theocracy: The Perils and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (Viking), now #2 on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction list. And one I agree with is Betsy Newmark, an AP history and government teacher in Raleigh, NC, who blogs at “Betsy’s Page”. She wrote the following about Phillips:

I happen to be one conservative who is not religious in the slightest, but I have the deepest respect for those who have a strong faith. I think Phillips' whole premise is hogwash.

If Phillips is so worried about the Republican Party becoming the religious party, perhaps the problem is not that religious people are becoming Republicans, but that they are not feeling welcome in the Democratic Party. This is a point that Hugh Hewitt makes very powerfully in his new book, Painting the Map Red. Let me just quote from page 94:

"The attempt to scare America into voting against Republicans because of the absurd charge that their followers want a 'theocracy' may be the biggest electoral mistake of the past fifty years. It is simply impossible to persuade majorities of Americans that they and their neighbors want mullah-style government because they and those neighbors oppose gay marriage or think that devout Catholics can make great great judges. The deep offense given to people of faith upon being charged with extremism and kinship with the Taliban and the Iranian mullahs is sinking deeper and deeper into the consciousness of the American electorate.

"It is a slander with few parallels, and the rote denials of religious bigotry when confronted with the record cannot undo the deserved reputation of the left, and especially leading pundits of the left, for religious bigotry."

Hugh could have read Kevin Phillips' mind.