Evangelical Political Consultants

Some political observers and pundits have argued that democrats made gains among conservative Christian voters in the mid-term elections in November. That may be true and if so, it may be attributable to the hiring of evangelical consultants by democratic candidates. Recently Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton hired Burns Strider as her evangelical consultant. Strider directs religious outreach for House democrats and is the lead staffer for the democrats Faith Working Group.

Other candidates have made similar hires. Josh Dubois is heading up Barack Obama's religious outreach and Shaun Casey has been hired by John Kerry as a religious consultant. Casey is a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary. I recently had e-mail correspondence with Josh Dubois about Senator Obama's support of a bill that amended the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) to allow individuals in chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plans to continue tithing.

Over 25% of American voters claim to be evangelical. Republicans have long held roots within this group of voters. But the mid-term elections showed some democratic candidates gaining ground among these voters and some attribute those gains to the work of Mara Vanderslice of Common Good Strategies. She assisted several candidates with their campaigns to attract evangelical Christians.

Some have pronounced that conservatism is dead. With these efforts by democratic candidates to reach out to evangelical Christians, the GOP needs to wake up or it may see other defections by Christian voters. And republican politicians must do more than give mere lip service to issues that are important to Christian voters. They must also take bold action to make changes in areas that Christians believe are important like abortion, same-sex marriage, conservative jurists, etc. If they don't, then they may find a deeper erosion of their stronghold among Christians.

Jerome