Evangelicals were already showing some signs of sitting this one out. In the couple of months, I have received several emails from conservatives advocating staying home on election day. I do not plan to do this but even a small percentage point decline in any group’s participation could swing close elections. The Haggard scandal may further alienate evangelicals to take a holiday on election day.
6 thoughts on “Ted Haggard fallout: Will evangelical voters stay home?”
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Looks like they stayed home.
“If Haggard was a liberal Episcopal, this story would have never made the news.”
Well, in a way you’re probably right. If Haggard was a liberal Episcopal, then he wouldn’t have held news conferences decrying the evils of homosexuality and pushing for an anti-gay marriage amendment.
If Haggard was a liberal Episcopal, he wouldn’t have been preaching against gay sex from his televised pulpit.
If Haggard was a liberal Episcopal, Jones would never have felt that he had an obligation to reveal the hypocrisy of a man who was doing harm to those whom Jones’ cares about.
If Haggard was a liberal Episcopal, then this whole scandal would never have happened.
Don’t blame this on Democrats or mainstream media. Blame this on a man who gambled that he could stir up voters with fear about gay couples without his own actions coming to light. He lost that gamble and only has himself to blame.
I think that people take a sort of sick pleasure in seeing preachers revealed as sinners. The political party makes little difference. People love scandal, and particularly like seeing religious hypocrisy exposed.
“If Haggard was a liberal Episcopal, this story would have never made the news.”
Hogwash. How come whenever a conservative blows it it’s the democrats’ fault?
Both parties love to catch the other party with its pants down. Have you forgotten the delight the Republican’s felt over the Clinton/Lewinsky affair?
This is simply the Democrats and mainstream media throwing mud at Christian Conservatives – and linking them to Republicans – the week before an election.
If Haggard was a liberal Episcopal, this story would have never made the news.
Evangelicals know this, and if anything, I think it will bring more out on Tuesday.
I dont know about staying home. That would be sad if that happened. But there’s another angle that ought to be explored, and that is the asumption that evangelicals vote as a block.
I hears a discussion on NPR yesterday afternoon in which one commenter noted that evangelicals are more closely split between GOP and dems than most people assume. The GOP have an decent advantage, but not an overwhelming one, and one irony may be that the conservative evangelical leadership’s drive to register evangelicals to vote may actually have diluted the conservative vote a little.
This rang true for me, growing up Catholic and hearing all the talk about the so-called “Catholic” vote. There is none, and never was, although there may have been at one time an immigrant or working-class vote, which Catholics used to be in overwhelming numbers inthe first half of the 20th century. I always found the idea of a “Catholic block” ludicrous, given the multitude of opinions and spirited debates I always heard down at the parish hall over coffee and donuts.