Republican Use of Religious Voters Exposed

Yesterday I noted the impending publication of Tempting Fate by David Kuo which shows that the Bush Administration mocked evangelicals while using them for political gain. Keith Olbermann got an advanced copy of the book to discuss, with video and transcript available at Crooks and Liars. From the show:

To this day, Kuo says he believes Mr. Bush loves Jesus; that he is a good man. However, Kuo says many Christians assume from his belief in Jesus Christ that he won’t do what other politicians do: break their word, hide their mistakes, or spin the truth. And that those assumptions are wrong.

In Kuo’s eyes, today’s national Christian leaders were being used. They didn’t have the same shrewdness Billy Graham had in the ’70s, to question whether Nixon was using him for his appeal to religious voters.

In fact, Christians who voted for Mr. Bush based on his religion, may have ended up hurting the very people Jesus sought to help: the poor.

Following recent reports of loss of evangelical support for Republicans, a Gallup Poll released yesterday shows that religious whites are shifting away from the Republican Party. It used to be that the strongest predictor of how someone would vote was how often they went to church. The current poll shows that regular churchgoers are evenly split at 47% for Democrats and Republicans. Most likely more of them will wind up voting Republican (unless they read Kuo’s book), but this could still predict a tremendous drop in support for Republicans.

The Republicans had a great scam going for a while in using the religious voters to take power, and then using that power to enrich themselves. That scam may be coming to an end–similar to the scam where Republican get the votes of those interested in freedom or a true free market economy as opposed to corporate welfare.

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