> Doug Henwood wrote:
>> Anderson should really step down from that lofty
>> summit he inhabits. He forgets that the impeachment
>> drive was led by some truly horrible people and that
>> many of us who were no fans of Clinton viewed his
>> enemies with deep alarm.
>
> What struck me when I first read it was "In the culture at large, the
> Christian Right is a paper tiger." The *hell*?
This is an interesting subject. I was recently surprised to learn that the Christian Coalition only has 2 million members. For comparison's sake, the AFL-CIO has 13 million, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare has 3 million, and Moveon.org has 1.4 million American members. (Moveon.org has 600,000 members outside the U.S.)
In the 2000 exit polls, only 14% of voters self-identified as part of the "white Christian right" (down from 17% in 1996). And if the Christian right votes at a greater rate than the rest of the population, which seems like a safe assumption, their strength in the U.S. is under 14%.
On the other hand, they're very well-organized and vociferous. And this doesn't really address what their effect is in the culture at large. But while they're not necessarily a paper tiger, they're not a real tiger either.