Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . INTERVIEW . SHAUN CASEY . November 3, 2006

Read more of Kim Lawton's October 18, 2006 interview with Wesley Theological Seminary Christian ethics professor Shaun Casey:

Q: How important is the November 7 midterm election? To what extent will it set the stage for 2008?

A: I think everybody's going to be reading the results of this election, sort of like reading the tea leaves and perhaps over-interpreting what happens. But I think people are going to be looking for evidence to say my strategy's working, your strategy is not. So in that sense it's very unusual. I think that the midterm election results are going to be put under a microscope by just about everybody, with an eye to what's going be happening in 2008, so I think the results are really quite important for both parties.

Q: How important will religion be this time around again, as a signal of how important it will be in 2008?

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A: I think religion is huge for both sides. I think the Republicans are trying to do the traditional get-out-the-vote, moving the religious right base out against some really strong countervailing winds right now, and I think the people who are parts of those communities are wanting to demonstrate that they indeed can bring the election back to the party once again. So on the Republican side, religion plays a huge role. On the Democratic side it's also important, because in a lot of these very close toss-up races in the Senate, for instance, you have a number of candidates who have turned to religious outreach really for the first time. So Democrats are going be watching the results there (a) to see if dividends are paid, and (b) to determine, well, which tactics work, which tactics did not work. And I think a lot of national Democrats are looking at it to see if there are clues they can pick up for 2008 as a result of what they see working in 2006.

Q: With the Democrats there seems to be a new strategy in place, more religious outreach than there ever has been before. How significant will that shape up to be in 2008?

A: I think Democrats are doing a number of interesting new things. You see a number of national candidates, even some elected officials who aren't running yet, making speeches, for instance, going into religious enclaves or religious colleges and making very explicit theologically oriented speeches, and that's new. Then, at the sort of grass roots level, you're seeing a number of statewide races where the party and the candidates are actually going out into Catholic communities, mainline Protestant communities, and interestingly enough, into evangelical communities and doing traditional grass roots kinds of organizations -- something the Democratic Party hasn't done much of in recent memory or even long-term memory. So it's at the macro level as well as the micro level. You're seeing outreach going on. You're seeing an embrace of explicitly religious language. You're seeing candidates telling their own autobiographical, spiritual stories in a way that I've never seen Democrats do in such a large measure.

Q: In the 2004 election, there was a lot of criticism about how John Kerry handled religion and the lessons that he learned, what his campaign did and didn't do on religion. Do you expect to see something different in 2008?

A: Oh, absolutely. I think everybody who's going be running for a nomination in the Democratic Party is going to have some form of religious outreach probably for the first time in the history of the party. If 12 people are running, you're going to see 12 different religious outreach shops in those discrete campaigns. So, absolutely, that's going to be different. I think, secondly, you're going to see candidates including that part of their story in their wider outreach. They're going to be talking about how they grew up. They're going to be talking about the spiritual values that have shaped them or that they currently embrace. And I think, also, you're going to see a much more sophisticated approach to media outreach. I mean, Democrats have done a horrible job in getting a religious or spiritual message out. I think now they're beginning to understand in a much more sophisticated way there are specific ways to reach out to religious communities through their own discrete media, and I think you're going to see more of that as well. I think it's a brand new day. I think anybody who's going to seriously run for the presidency on the Democratic side from day one is going to have some kind of religious outreach strategy, and I've never seen that before.

Q: And some of those are being tested right now in advance of this midterm election?

A: That's absolutely right. You know, there's that overriding stereotype that the Democratic Party's unfriendly to religious groups. Now, we can talk about what those statistics really mean or don't mean. But there is this stereotype out there that Democrats are anti-religion, and from Howard Dean all the way down to the local city council people, people are trying to attack that and say that's really not the case. But, in fact, millions of religiously motivated people vote Democratic, and they always have, so all Democrats are interested in knocking that down, and you're going to see a lot more vigilance and energy going into that, I think, in 2008.

Q: You mentioned grass roots mobilizations. Is that in some ways setting up a machine that can be called upon in 2008?

A: Well, I think it's far more ad hoc at this point. Unlike the Republican Party, which I understand does very frequent micro-targeting of specific religious groups even at the block and precinct level, there's nothing analogous to that on the Democratic side at the national level. Now, there may be some efforts afoot to reach that level at some point, but it is extraordinarily expensive to go out and buy that kind of commercial data, put it in the database, and then be able to distribute it to candidates, and the Democrats are really far behind in that game. They're trying to catch up. But they haven't reached that point yet. Now maybe by 2008 they will. But instead you're seeing House candidates, you're seeing some statewide races building their own databases, doing their own kind of micro-targeting with, sometimes, extra help from different sources. But it's much more an ad hoc kind of basis. My hunch is that by 2008, the Democrats still won't have parity with the Republicans when it comes to that kind of micro-targeting capacity on a nationwide basis. My hunch is they're going to move into swing states, highly contested areas, where perhaps a couple thousand votes might make a difference in a precinct or congressional district. I think they're probably going to concentrate their religious micro-targeting efforts at that sort of well-parsed or -spaced level as opposed to the national blanketing that Republicans can do.

Q: What are some of those key battleground areas where we are already seeing some mobilization of grass roots faith-based people now and will see even more in the years to come?

A: You think of the arc, kind of the upper Midwest states. If you start with Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan, certainly there's a lot of effort by Democrats in those areas. And if you can show that religious outreach produces actual electoral dividends in those states and those closely contested races, it's going to reverberate out from there. I would look, then, maybe for tier-states just to the south of that where Virginia, which is much more of a purple state than say, red or blue -- that kind of targeting of religious communities might pay off. Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas -- I think those states are going to be very crucial in 2008. So, if you have success sort of in the upper Midwest with religious outreach, I think you're going to see it settling a little bit further to the south, and that will be an area. The other thing I would say would also be with respect to Hispanic outreach. I think in places like Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, California, maybe even in Texas, as the Hispanic vote grows and becomes much more potent. People are going be looking at Hispanic evangelicals, and people are going be looking at Hispanic Roman Catholics with a brand new eye. So, I think that's sort of the second area where you might see a lot of Democratic resources going in terms of religious outreach in 2008.

Q: For both parties, what are the faith-based voting constituencies that are up for grabs and at play in some of these key areas?

A: I think the two broad religious groups that are in play increasingly would be moderate evangelicals and moderate Roman Catholics. If you look at 2004 and see how close that race was, if Democrats can make only marginal gains in those two areas, they're going to be in a great electoral position come 2008. So, Democrats really don't need to pick off a majority of either one of those communities, but they simply need to do better in 2008 than they did in 2004. I guess they are better positioned going into 2008 than they were going into 2004 with those constituencies on a number of key issues.

Q: What about for the Republicans? What are their big challenges this time around, but certainly with an eye to 2008?

A: If you're a Republican advisor at this point, you're under a lot of stress as you look to moderate evangelicals and you look towards moderate Catholics, because there are a lot of issues that are blowing against you at this point in those two communities. So on the one hand, you've got to shore up your base and try to do as well as you can there. But you've also got to be looking for voters elsewhere because it may be very difficult for a Republican presidential nominee in 2008 to do as well with moderate evangelicals and moderate Catholics as George Bush did in 2004. So, they are going to have to be looking for voters elsewhere, I think, in addition to shoring up that base. But my hunch is, right now, that the notion that they're going to do as well in 2008 with these groups as they did in 2004 is a real long shot. And if you're trying to build a strategy to win, you're going to have to go somewhere else to make up the difference for the folks you may be losing among those communities.

Q: And what challenge does shoring up the base present? You have to have your base, too.

A: Well, that's right, and part of the problem is the electoral strategy in 2000 and 2004 for Republicans has been premised on turning out that vote in record numbers, turning out evangelical Christians and siphoning off Catholics in record numbers from the [Democratic] party. But, there's a law of diminishing returns at work there at this point. All the polling seems to say that those two groups, at least at the moment, are migrating back to the Democratic Party. So, they're losing a good part of their base, it would seem, here in 2006. Shoring up the base I don't think is going to be enough. I think you're going to have to try to find voters somewhere else in addition to those two constituencies, because it's really going to be hard to shore that base up effectively, I think.

Q: How much traction do you think some of the social issues are still going to have for conservative Catholics and evangelicals -- things like gay marriage? How big an issue is that still for them?

A: I think it seems like the gay marriage initiative at the state level is losing steam in terms of a hot button issue. But take the state of Virginia at the moment. Virginia has a very restrictive initiative on the ballot that would not only outlaw gay marriage but also civil unions. And yet the Senate race is absolutely deadlocked at this point. So it doesn't seem like that particular hot button issue is paying any dividends to statewide Republicans in Virginia. My hunch is that's true all across the country. So it's helping, but I'm not sure it's going to provide the sort of last-minute nudge that some of these Republicans are going to need in these tight races. In a sense, Republicans have gone to that well now twice. They did it in 2004; they're doing it in 2006. I think you see a law of decreasing returns at work there. Now, the other hot button issue, of course, is abortion, and there I think Democrats have actually made some more direct progress, as opposed to the gay marriage kinds of initiative.

On abortion, you're now seeing people like Bob Casey, who's running in Pennsylvania; you're seeing Hillary Clinton, senator from New York; and you've seen John Kerry, who's not running for reelection, all make speeches where in essence they've said, "We're looking for a common ground here. We're looking for a way to reduce the number of abortions," something which they say the current administration has not been able to do. I think there are a number of moderate Catholics and moderate evangelicals for whom abortion is still a huge issue.

They're faced with a very pragmatic choice now between a pro-life rhetoric that seemingly hasn't been able to do much in terms of reducing abortion versus an economic argument that says if you follow these sort of Democratic policies, you will get a dividend, which is a reduction in the number of abortions. So Democrats, I think, have made a little bit of progress in blunting the force of the abortion arguments with some of these constituencies.

Q: What's the risk for Democrats in this kind of outreach, in making these kinds of nods toward the faith-based community? Do they risk alienating Jews? Do they risk alienating pro-choice people who aren't too happy about a moderated stand on abortion?

A: Oh, there's always that danger, but it's also hard to imagine people in those constituencies flipping and going to the Republican side. And they may be angry and frustrated. I still think they're going to pull the Democratic lever, because the Democratic Party has not abandoned them as they've tried to reach out to these other more centrist kinds of groups. There's always the danger of backlash. There's always the danger that, as a candidate, you're going to say something silly or stupid. You're going to put a book of scripture in the wrong Testament, or something like that. There's always the sense that if you walk in as a stranger, you're going to say something that's going to alienate people and reverberate. But the upside seems to be a lot greater in the minds of a lot of Democrats today that you need to go back into some of these traditional constituencies that the Democratic Party has not been active in for several decades now.

Q: What about for the faith communities? Is there new language? Are there new strategies within the communities themselves?

A: I think we're seeing a very interesting thing happening on the evangelical side, but also on the Catholic side. I think there's a strong, correct theological impulse to say that the church should never form a permanent alliance with any political party. That's a fundamental mistake theologically for any Christian group or, frankly, for any religious group to do that. I think there's been a sense that that's really been the only option on the table for a lot of folks -- that we have to align with this party or we have to align permanently with that party. I sense now that there's much more of an independent spirit emerging out there that says, "Okay, we're going to take it on a case-by-case basis." And in tandem with that, I think, is the affirmation that is very rare that any political party's stance corresponds absolutely with the theological agenda of any religious community. So any kind of alliance is going to be provisional. It's going to be ad hoc. It's going to be temporary, and that's a much more sophisticated position than we've seen as compared to some religious communities in recent years. I think that's a good thing. I think that's certainly good for religious communities, and ultimately it's going to be good for political parties, because they can't simply assume, "Oh, those folks are part of our base. We can ignore them. We can move on." As long as the relationship is temporary and provisional, you're going to have to attend to the demands and the wants of various religious communities, and I see that as a positive for both the polity and for the religious communities.

Q: Conservative evangelicals formed a real tight bond with George W. Bush. He was able to build this sense of relationship and trust with them. How big a challenge is that going to be for the next presidential nominee, whether Republican or Democrat? Are people going to be looking for that same kind of bond?

A: People may be looking for that kind of bond. I don't think they're going to find it. If you sit down and draw the list of the 20-some odd people who've expressed some desire about running for the presidency in either party, there really is no one there who has the legacy and the history that George Bush had with evangelical Christians by the time he ran in 2000. He had been working for almost 15 years courting that constituency in various ways, and it took him a long time to build, to overcome the initial mistrust, and you have to give him great credit. He exhibited great political skill in reaching out and unifying what had been a badly divided group of religious communities. I don't see anybody on either side replicating that. Even if today, in 2006, a candidate said, "I want to build a relationship like George Bush with these folks," there aren't enough days in the calendar between now and the election in 2008 to establish that. The other difficult point is that if you look at the leaders of the religious right, they're going to be under tremendous pressure to pick a candidate early, and yet there's absolutely no upside, if you're one of those leaders, to pick somebody early, because if you pick wrong and lose then you're going to be on the outside looking in. We're already seen a little bit of tension between some of these leaders, where John McCain went down to Lynchburg and essentially got the blessing of Jerry Fallwell, and Richard Land was in the paper the next day saying, "I can't endorse John McCain. I know where he stands on gay marriage. I know where he stands on stem cell research. I have too long a memory." So I think in 2008, if you take these dozen or so religious right leaders and look at them, they're not going to be unified until a nominee appears on the dais at the Republican National Convention, and then it's going to be too late to be on the inside. So that's the other dynamic, I think -- that we will not see a Republican being able to put all these people together behind him the way that George Bush did both in 2000 and in 2004.

Q: But are you going to see people trying?

A: Oh, absolutely. I mean, all the Republicans are going make the rounds of those religious right leaders and say all the right things and do all the right things. But I don't think any of them are going to be successful in picking off all of those leaders early on. Now at some point in the nominating process, when a leader does emerge, sure, I think most of those people will get on board unless it's a pro-choice Republican who, you know -- you look at Rudy Giuliani, for instance. If he were to emerge, that would create chaos in the religious right, because they're not going to endorse somebody like that. And there is the real downside, I think, the real threat for Republicans at the national level, that if they produce a candidate who isn't orthodox on a number of these hot-button kinds of issues, where are these folks going to go? Where are their leaders going to go? And where are the grass roots going to go? I think that will bear watching in 2008.

Q: If you see a whole lot of Democrats all of a sudden start talking about religion, is that also going to look opportunistic? What is the line they need to walk as they court people of faith?

A: Well, you're certainly going to see that commentary coming from the Republican Party and you're going to see it coming from the leaders of the religious right. You've already seen it in response to some of the Democratic senators who have made speeches. They've been accused of pandering and making this up on the fly. That's inevitable. That's going to happen. I don't think you're going to see Democrats intimidated by that threat, that somehow the religious right's going to rise up and call them fakers. They have to anticipate that. They have to know that that's coming. But I think the calculation in their heads will be that the benefits are going to be larger. In fact, there's probably something to be gained if you get attacked by one of the symbolic leaders of the religious right. You can simply say, "Look, we're hitting a nerve. We're reaching into their constituencies, and they're nervous. We expect this to happen." So in that sense Democrats will try to turn that criticism back on its source and simply say, "Well, look, you know, they're criticizing me for my own faith and belief. How fair is that? How right is that? For years they've claimed we were the secular party, and now suddenly we talk about our own faith and they're criticizing us for talking about our faith." So you're going to see some of that tension. You're going to see some of that back and forth thing, I'm confident, in 2008.

Q: Are we going to be hearing about religion all the time on the campaign trail? Are we moving into a period now where it's expected that we hear all sorts of religious talk?

A: I think you're going to hear some. I think the form it's going to take will be interesting to see. My hunch is a lot of it will be more autobiographical. I doubt you're going to hear many people saying, when they accept the nomination in summer of 2008, "Jesus told me to do X" or "God told me to do Y." I don't think you're going to hear that kind of language. But you are going to hear people saying, "Here are my political values, and let me tell you how growing up Roman Catholic led me to those values." Or, again, "Here are my positions. Let me tell you how being an evangelical Christian led me to this particular set of values." So I think you're going to find a kind of inclusive rhetoric, and there are some examples around of politicians who have done that fairly effectively in the past. I think those will be the models to display your faith -- not in an exclusionary sort of way, but do it in an open-ended way that actually looks for partnerships and looks for overlap among other communities and other people of good will. I don't think it will mimic the kind of hard right-wing religious rhetoric we have sometimes seen in the Republican Party. But we're in new territory here. It may - it will take a variety of forms, depending on the personality of the different candidates involved. I do think we will see a lot more theologically flavored language out there in 2008 from Democrats.

Q: Are we entering a season that is indeed new territory for both parties?

A: Oh, absolutely. Part of it is the old notion of civil religion is dead in the sense, as President Eisenhower said what Americans want is for a president to believe in something. They really don't care what, as long as there's some form of religious piety there. That was maybe the classic statement of American civil religion, where you paid homage to some sort of ethereal, nameless God who seemingly was looking over America's best interest. Instead, I think you're going to see people, if I can use the jargon, in a postmodern sort of way, "embracing their particularity," talking about their own story and their own origin -- not in an exclusionary way, where you say, "I was raised in the best possible religious community. I'm sorry if you were raised outside it," but rather to say, "I was raised in this particular corner of the American religious world, and it empowers me to go out and beyond the boundaries of that community and embrace and welcome people from all forms of community." So, instead of the sort of generic guide language, the nonspecific language that we have seen up until recent years, I think it's going to be turned on its head. I think you're going to hear people say, "This is my story. Maybe you can identify with my particular narrative. It has propelled me into a position of leadership. It's propelled me into wanting to seek commonality with people of all sorts of diverse roots." And that's going to play out, I think, in quite different forms, depending on the particular narrative, and I think this is true on both sides of the aisle. It's not just Democrats are going to do that. I think Republicans are going to be doing that as well.

Q: For the voters, what kind of new territory is this for them?

A: It's interesting in the sense that, at the level of choosing a nominee, you're going to be confronted with a wide range of religious expression, and I'm not sure we've ever really had much of that in the American experience. Again, we may have 20 people running for president very soon, and there are going to be 20 different stories circulating out there, and as voters, we've never had to process that many stories together at one time and say, "Okay, I like that story; I'm not so sure about that one." We've never had to compare apples and oranges like that when it comes to choosing our president. I think that's part of the newness of the moment.