The "evangelical effect" exists, but it is *much smaller* than many believe it to be: "The difference across groups [between born-again white Americans who identify with the Republican Party and non-born-again white Americans who identify with the Republican Party] is *small for low incomes, about 8.5 percentage points*" (emphasis added, Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, _Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches_, Chapter 3 "Income Polarization and the Electorate," <http://www.cbrss.harvard.edu/events/encounters/papers/MPRchapter3.pdf>, p. 25).
See "Table 7: Republican Identification By Income and Religion, Whites Only" on page 54 (McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal, <http://www.cbrss.harvard.edu/events/encounters/papers/MPRchapter3.pdf>), and you can recognize that the Republican Party does not enjoy the allegiance of a majority of born-again white Americans *below the threshold of the annual household income of $50,000*.
That's actually very good news, since the majority (57%) of US households earn less than $50,000 annually.
Why, then, did the Republican Party triumph in the 2004 elections? Because *only 45%* of those who voted in 2004 had annual household incomes of less than $50,000. In other words, *the rich, both born-again and non-born-again, are over-represented* among those who voted.
These facts argue against the idea that we must adapt our cultural agenda to a conservative sexual belief in order to win over working-class born-again or evangelical Christians. Regardless of their conservative values on such topics as abortion and gay marriage, the majority of low-income conservative Christians -- below the annual household income of $50,000 -- are not Republicans, for the pocketbook is more important for them than what happens in other people's sexual and reproductive lives. What is to be done is to present a robust left-wing economic agenda and mobilize people whose household incomes are less than $50,000 through social movements and electoral politics. That's what cannot be done through the Democratic Party. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>