A new poll — and a new book — spell t-r-o-u-b-l-e for the GOP.
The new poll is from Gallup:
An analysis of USA Today/Gallup poll trend data indicates that while Democrats have made gains across the board on the generic Congressional ballot in the latest Oct. 6-8 survey, the change has been greater among religious whites than among less religious whites and among non whites. At this point, religious whites are equally as likely to say they will vote Democratic as Republican, a marked change from their strong tilt towards the Republicans in surveys conducted June through September.
For the purpose of political analysis this year, Gallup has divided the American population into three groups based on race and church attendance: Religious whites (defined as whites who self-report attending church weekly or almost every week), less religious whites (defined as whites who self-report attending church monthly or less often), and all others.
And:
Religious whites went from an average Democratic disadvantage of 23 points across the June through September months, to dead even in October. Less religious whites shifted only seven points across these two time periods, while the group of “all others” shifted 9 points.
A comparison of the September average to October shows a 22-point gain for the Democrats among white frequent churchgoers, a six-point gain among white less frequent churchgoers, and a 14-point gain among all others.
The comparison between religious whites and less religious whites is particularly revealing. The gap between these two groups averaged 42 points in the June through September period, and is now down to 26 points. The gap between religious whites and all others averaged a dramatic 78 points in June thorough September, and is now a somewhat lower 64 points.
Gallup’s conclusion:
The data reviewed here suggest that the Republicans have lost — at least temporarily — some of the disproportionate advantage in voting preference they have enjoyed among religious whites. This group continues to be much more likely than less religious whites or nonwhites to support the Republican candidate in their House race, and is currently as likely to support a Democrat as a Republican Congressional candidate. But, the difference between religious whites and these other two groups has narrowed somewhat as of the Oct. 6-8 poll.
One plausible explanation for the broad drop in Republican support in the most recent poll is the Mark Foley scandal in Congress. Since this situation involved issues of morality on the part of Foley, and allegations of a cover-up on the part of Republican leadership, it appears plausible that religious whites may have become disproportionately disillusioned with the Republicans and as a result lost more of their fervor for voting Republican than others in the population.
Will this be helped later today when President George Bush attends a fundraiser and stands alongside House Speaker Dennis Hastert?
Bush’s strong point to supporters early in his term was his ability to “hang tough.” But that is now emerging as a weakness: Bob Woodward’s new book portrays Bush as a cheer-leading, closed-minded chief executive; and rather than try to minimize political fallout on the Foley issue, Bush is defending Hastert who — rightfully or wrongfully — has now become a big, fat political albatross around the GOP’s nearly-submerged-in-water neck.
Meanwhile, the GOP is likely to be battered by the emergence of a new book that contends what many have suggested: that Bush, political maven Karl Rove and GOP bigwig Ken Mehlman have been exploiting evangelicals and may be saying one thing about them in private and one thing in public. The book “Tempting Faith� by David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003. MSNBC:
More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.
The office’s primary mission, providing financial support to charities that serve the poor, never got the presidential support it needed to succeed, according to the book.
Entitled “Tempting Faith,� the book is not scheduled for release until Oct. 16, but MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann� has obtained a copy.
The following tidbit will likely further erode support the GOP and Bush had received:
He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.�
“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’� Kuo writes.
More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan� events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.
According to Kuo, “Ken loved the idea and gave us our marching orders.�
Among those marching orders, Kuo says, was Mehlman’s mandate to conceal the true nature of the events.
Kuo quotes Mehlman as saying, “… (I)t can’t come from the campaigns. That would make it look too political. It needs to come from the congressional offices. We’ll take care of that by having our guys call the office [of faith-based initiatives] to request the visit.�
Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans, Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush’s 2004 Ohio victory “at least partially … to the conferences we had launched two years before.�
With the exception of one reporter from the Washington Post, Kuo says the media were oblivious to the political nature and impact of his office’s events, in part because so much of the debate centered on issues of separation of church and state.
In fact, the Bush administration often promoted the faith-based agenda by claiming that existing government regulations were too restrictive on religious organizations seeking to serve the public.
Substantiating that claim proved difficult, Kuo says. “Finding these examples became a huge priority.… If President Bush was making the world a better place for faith-based groups, we had to show it was really a bad place to begin with. But, in fact, it wasn’t that bad at all.�
If this info has journalistic “legs” and is circulated in newspapers, cables and morning TV shows it could spell more trouble for the GOP.
But it’s bound to impact some folks who increasingly feel they’ve been had — and a future Gallup poll could spell even more short and long term bad political news.
You can pre-order Tempting Faith here.
You can order Bob Woodard’s State of Denial here.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.