For almost four decades, the religious right has followed a simple formula–use social issues to wedge devoutly religious voters away from the Democrats when, at least on paper, they have no business voting Republican.
This tactic has worked particularly well in Alabama. The Democrats remained more or less on an even footing with Republicans for most of the 1980s and 1990s even as the state went Republican at the presidential level. But since the turn of the millennium, the state has turned a nearly unrecognizable shade of red–in large part because a significant segment of the population has been brainwashed into thinking that voting for a Democrat could endanger their salvation.
At the same time, Alabama Republican primaries have often seen candidates not only try to out-conservative each other, but also out-Christian each other. But apparently even Alabama voters have limits. Although conventional wisdom suggests that Roy Moore was in the driver’s seat to serve the remainder of Jeff Sessions’ term in the Senate, recent polls show Democrat Doug Jones making a race of it; one poll from Fox News suggests the race is a flat-footed tie. According to one veteran observer of the Alabama political scene, it may be because Moore is actually too religious for many Alabamians’ liking.
Moore was very much in his element at last weekend’s Values Voters Summit. For instance, at a luncheon before Friday’s main session, he demanded that the justices who voted to make marriage equality the law of the land be impeached. Later, when he took the stage at the main session, he read a poem he wrote after his first ouster as chief justice of Alabama, “America The Beautiful.” People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Moore said that he made no bones about talking so much about God because “when you forget God, you can forget politics.” He drove the point home further in the poem, which read in part:
“You think that God’s not angry, that our land’s a moral slum?
How much longer will it be before His judgment comes?
And how can we face our God, from Whom we cannot hide?
What is left for us to do, but stem this evil tide!”
Not surprisingly, the crowd went wild. But Larry Powell, a professor of communication studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an expert in political communications, thinks that kind of red meat may actually work against Moore in the Senate race.
Powell told WBMA in Birmingham that Moore is widely perceived as “a religious fanatic”–and that perception could potentially blow up in his face in December. Powell said that while Alabama is a very religious state, voters tend to be wary of candidates who are seen as too religious. Moore has wrapped himself in the cross to such an extent that, in Powell’s words, “he falls into the ‘too religious’ category.”
That suggestion may come as a shock to anyone from outside Alabama. After all, we’re talking about a man who has made his career out of wearing his religion on his sleeve. He first came to attention for his decade-long battle over his hand-carved Ten Commandments plaque, first as a circuit judge and then as chief justice.
Aside from Moore, the moment that probably illustrated just how fundified Alabama has become may have been during the 2010 Republican primary for governor. One of the candidates, Bradley Byrne–now a congressman–was put on blast by his opponents after word got out that he didn’t believe the Bible was infallible. In a breathtaking response, Byrne said that he believed “every single word” of the Bible was true.
In a state where one’s belief about whether the Bible is infallible became a campaign issue in a primary, you would think that it would take a lot of effort to be too religious for that state’s voters. But Powell thinks Moore may have crossed that line, and may have turned off enough younger Republican voters that they may break ranks and vote for Jones. There’s actually something to this scenario. A number of studies have shown that younger Americans have become less religious–and those who are religious tend to be more open-minded than their parents and grandparents.
For much of this year, it was thought that the race to succeed Sessions would effectively be decided in the Republican primary. It thus came as a shock when numerous polls showed Jones very much within striking distance in a state that not only hasn’t seen a competitive Senate race in 20 years, but is also one of the few places where Donald Trump still walks on water. If Powell is right, it may be because a number of Alabamians want a Senator, not a preacher. And with Doug Jones, they’ll actually get a Senator. Send Jones some love here.
(featured image courtesy Moore’s Facebook)
