As the new year approaches, faith is becoming an organizing principle of the first election of the third millennium. A quarter century ago, Jimmy Carter became the first major contender to put his faith front and center. After Watergate, the country was ready for a cleansing, and found it in a candidate who promised “never to lie.” Now, at the end of the Clinton years, the country seems ready for another revival.
The issue is whether an appeal to religion will work as a moral cleaning agent. The wobbly front runners - Bush and Al Gore - are sons of the Bible belt, where public expression of belief in Jesus is a way of life and where endorsements from above matter. Religious faith and “faith-based institutions,” they insist, can help solve problems in welfare, education and job training. Their hard-charging challengers - John McCain and Bill Bradley - are products of rigorous callings (the Navy, pro basketball) in which you keep your views to yourself and your performance is all that counts. They proselytize - they’re both engaging preachers on TV - but not about religion. Their faith is in the healing power of insurgency and the anticorporate Creed of Reform.
The Southern-based front runners have different styles of public “witness.” Gore’s is low key. He attended divinity school at Vanderbilt for a year, and keeps a well-thumbed Bible concordance in his home library. But the vice president discusses his own faith only when asked. “Faith is the center of my life,” he told an interviewer, but “I don’t wear it on my sleeve.” Bush, by contrast, wears it like a robe. He briefly turned the recent Iowa debate into a revival meeting. Why? Even some of his own supporters said that the Yale history major once again had been caught off guard by a question he had not expected. “Who knows what he would have said if he’d had to answer first,” said one prominent Washington backer.
But there are better explanations. Religious conservatives are crucial to Bush’s plan for winning the nomination. Facing possible defeat in New Hampshire - where secular independents are the critical force - Bush is relying on evangelical support in Iowa, South Carolina, Michigan and Virginia. Bush won’t promise conservatives that he will name a pro-life running mate, a pledge that might hurt him in the general election. Instead, his pitch is more emotional: trust me, for I’m “born again.”
The governor is on solid ground when talking about religion. He spent his boyhood and much of his business career in Midland, Texas, the oil patch of the Bible belt. He joined a Bible-study class 13 years ago - at about the time he stopped drinking. He and his wife, Laura, regularly attend Methodist services. Since he hit the campaign trail, Bush often has seemed confused in unscripted moments. But he appeared relieved when he spoke of Christ in the debate and in a later interview with Larry King. “There’s a gradual warming of the heart,” he said. The question is whether voters will warm to his message in the same way.
