Your obligatory post about labels in Iowa

January 4, 2012 By

As you would imagine, one of the first things I did after returning home last night was cue up the Iowa coverage. For the most part, I surfed back and forth between CNN and Fox most of the night.

No MSNBC? I figured that watching MSNBC cover a GOP primary in the Heartland would be something like (insert metaphor of your choice here, something like “watching a Focus on the Family documentary on the life of Elton John”).

Lo and behold, one of the first things that I heard after I grabbed my remote was veteran Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, on Fox, talking about the importance of watching several caucus locations in Northwest Iowa. Why? Because those areas were heavily Catholic and that would show how Rick Santorum was faring with Catholic voters as well as with evangelical Protestants.

Wait a minute. There are Catholic voters in Iowa? Who knew?

In general, I thought one of the most interesting themes that ran through much of the night’s coverage was the admission by many experts and analysts that it was simplistic to talk about Iowa in terms of “evangelical voters,” alone. The real drama in the GOP race is between the party establishment and the so called Anyone-But-Mitt-Romney crowd that is currently voting for Santorum or for Rep. Ron Paul. The evangelicals are part of that scene, but so are working-class and middle-class Catholics. (See this David Brooks column in The New York Times for a concise summary of this issue.)

I was stunned at how many GOP insiders kept stressing the urgent need for Romney to break out of his 25 percent shell. Clearly, if somewhere between 54 and 56 percent of the Iowa caucus voters were self-proclaimed “evangelicals,” then Romney’s problem is much bigger than any remaining Mormon complications — since there are already some “evangelicals” voting for him. The “evangelical” issue is not the whole picture.

So how should reporters describe what is happening, when discussing the religion factor? The Times deserves some credit for admirable restraint in this day-after analysis piece that managed to avoid the “evangelical” label altogether. The lede noted:

DES MOINES – All year long the story of the Republican race for president was Mitt Romney and a rotating cast playing the role of Someone Else. On Tuesday night, Someone Else was played by two candidates: Rick Santorum, the longtime champion of social conservative issues that were supposedly taking a backseat in this jobs-centric presidential race, and Ron Paul, the noninterventionist Texan who represents an almost 180-degree turn from the Republican Party’s direction.

Of course, what unites the Santorum and Paul voters, other than opposition to Romney? The big words here are “culture” and “populism.” The fact that Paul’s cultural conservatism is appealing to many religious conservatives doesn’t hurt, either.

In other words, the Tea Party and the cultural conservatives can share pews rather easily. The issue is what to do with the country club folks.

On that issue, the Times turned to a major Southern Baptist voice for insight:

Still, for now, the intensity of the desire to unseat Mr. Obama may be Mr. Romney’s most important ally, overcoming whatever qualms various strains of conservatives have about him. Surveys of Iowans entering caucus sites on Tuesday night showed that slightly more people thought it most important to choose a candidate that can beat Mr. Obama than one who is a “true conservative.”

“The key is not whether Romney can unite the party, but whether Obama can unite the party,” said Richard Land, the head of the ethics commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. ”And the answer to that is a resounding yes.”

So the lesson there is to look at the wider issues of culture, class and religion — instead of focusing on a mythical, united, all-powerful “evangelical vote.” There is evidence that some folks at the Times did the math last night. Bravo.

Meanwhile, this chunk of a CNN round-up almost turned into a celebration of the futility that surrounds the religious-labels game.

Evangelicals still matter

Evangelicals made up about 60% of the caucus electorate in 2008, but heading into this year’s caucuses, polls suggested that the number might be lower. In the closely watched Des Moines Register poll released on Saturday before the vote, just 34% of likely caucus-goers described themselves as “born again” or “fundamentalist Christian.”

But according to entrance polls on Tuesday, 57% of those who caucused called themselves evangelical or “born again.”

Christian voters showed up but did not rally behind a single candidate like they did in 2008. … But Santorum, a Catholic and staunch abortion opponent who courted pastors and home-school activists during his campaign, outperformed his opponents and won a third of the evangelical vote. That’s a big slice of a crucial Iowa voting bloc that surely helped Santorum to his second-place finish on Tuesday.

Uh, and which voting bloc was that? The “evangelical” bloc, the tiny “fundamentalist” bloc or one of the two “evangelical” blocs? Also, if Santorum got a third of this alleged bloc, where did the other two-thirds go?

Please let us know — URLs in the comments pages — if you saw other Iowa coverage that dug into the cultural and wider religious issues, instead of simply focusing on the “evangelical” bloc or blocs that clearly did not vote as a bloc. I have also tried to find URLs for some of the television analysis, which — shocking — seemed much more nuanced that most of what I am reading in the major newspapers.

What did you see? What coverage impressed you, when it came time to “get religion,” as well as “get culture” and “get class”?

VIDEO: Santorum’s “Game on” remarks, opening with a quote from C.S. Lewis?

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Filed Under: Catholicism, Creeping Fundamentalism, Evangelicals, Journalism, Politics, Social Issues
About tmatt

Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

  • Shawn

    “Game on!” is also borrowed. Fictional White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman uses the same words to proclaim his boss, President Josiah Bartlet, has rediscovered his footing in his reelection bid in a 2002 episode of “The West Wing.” The episode is also entitled “Game On.”

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    But “Game on” is simply a saying adopted from sports, right? Another phrase popped into a political context….

  • Shawn

    True. Given the circumstances, I simply thought it was an interesting choice of words. It certainly beats the alternative, I suppose — A Howard Dean scream!

  • Rick

    I’m pretty sure the Catholic population is higher in Northeast Iowa (the larger urban centers are Dubuque, Cedar Rapids, Davenport). The areas with higher concentrations of Catholics leaned more toward Romney and Ron Paul. Western Iowa, which is more Evangelical, leaned toward Santorum.

  • Harris

    The folks who brought out Patchwork Nation, also have a fine interactive map by county of the vote. They categorize two of the NW Iowa counties as “Evangelical” and much of the state as “Emptying Nests.”

    Alec McGillis at The New Republic sees Santorum more as a reflection of the basic values of the voters, a view also echoed by Ross Douthat in The Times the other day.

  • http://!)! Passing By

    It appears that Dubuque is about 23% Catholic, but Davenport only about 14%. Sioux City run about 20%, and Des Moines goes at 12%. Of course, highly industrialized areas are likely to have Catholics of the Democrat persuasion, so I’m not sure what these numbers mean.

  • http://www.faithandgeekery.com Justin

    Some day I should work on my rant entitled “‘Christian Consevatives’ and ‘Evangelicals’ are not the same thing.”

    Case in point: NW Iowa. Despite the many reports I heard last night of the area being “an evangelical stronghold” or whatever, a simple look may prove otherwise. In Sioux, Lyon, and O’Brein Counties, the Dutch Reformed Church is prominent. Yes, it is more conservative than many of its non-Iowan counterparts (70% of Sioux County voted for Bob Dole). But Evangelical? Traditionally it’s not considered as such. Some towns (such as Sioux Center) have a whopping two churches that could easily fit the definition — the rest being Dutch Reformed, a prominent Catholic population, and a few ELCA. Lyon County, (one of the “Evangelical Epicenters,” as Patchwork Nation claims) has as many UCC churches as Baptist — and a huge new casino to boot.

    And to admit my bias – I grew up in the area and have family there. There were 12 churches in my town of 3000, not a one of them even close to “mega” status. We were conservative, no doubt, as even mowing the lawn on Sunday was something of a taboo. But in all my years there, not once did I hear someone refer to themselves as “Evangelical.” It’s a word I didn’t hear attached to a movement or type of Christian until I left the area for college.

  • Dale

    Justin:

    Isn’t it the Christian Reformed Church? And it’s a member of the National Association of Evangelicals. Curious, if the church doesn’t consider itself evangelical.

  • http://www.faithandgeekery.com Justin

    Dale,

    Good point about the CRC churches. Most of the area is about 50/50 CRC and Reformed Church of America. The RCA is less likely to be called Evangelical, although if the CRC is part of the NAE that news may not have reached all of the churches in its membership ;) I scanned the CRC website, and the word “Evangelical” didn’t appear except in a passing reference. Bill Hybels notably left the denomination because he didn’t think it was evangelistic enough.

    And I won’t go full Stephen Bloom here (getting the facts wrong, but still insisting I was totally right), I think there is a notable difference between what the press is labeling “Evangelical Christian” and what is going on in the area. Denominationalism is very high and megachurches are almost non-existent. When we’re right back here in 4 years — there’s an angle for an intrepid reporter to check out.

  • sari

    Could someone please provide a working definition of evangelical, both church and individual? It may have a clear meaning, but that’s not coming through in either the press or here.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    It seems that Evangelicals have a hard time voting for a Mormon, but Catholics do not. After all, he was elected governor of one of the more Catholic states in the union and I know he was the favored candidate for governor in our parish even though his opponent was a typical Irish Catholic liberal politician (one who frequently insults fellow Catholics for having the temerity to actually use their Christian morality to help judge who to vote for).
    I think Catholics don’t have much trouble voting for a Mormon who agrees with them on issues because they see Mormons as just another one of those myriad non-Catholic or Protestant groups not in communion with the pope.
    On the other hand apparently many Evangelicals don’t consider Mormons Christians (but many of us Catholics have been called non-Christian by some Evangelicals–that is why it is so ironic that the two heros of Evangelicals in Iowa are a convert to the Catholic Faith and a “born” Catholic who some claim is more Catholic than the pope (the Catholic Tebow of politics).
    Considering all this, I can understand why the media tries to over-simplify (or ignore) the religious angles of the Iowa story.

  • Dale

    sari:

    Could someone please provide a working definition of evangelical, both church and individual?

    That’s a loaded question. This is how the National Association of Evangelicals defines evangelical, but not all evangelicals are members of the NAE and agree with its statement of faith, and I dare say many Roman Catholics would fit into the NAE definition, but historically “evangelical” in American and British culture has meant Protestant.

    The press tends to use it as shorthand for any politically conservative Protestant, which leads to all sorts of misunderstandings. Evangelicals generally see themselves as theologically conservative, but don’t define evangelicalism politically.

    Both of the authors mentioned on the NAE link, historians Mark Noll and David Bebbington, are good sources– “evangelical” as a label is a product of church history in America and England.

  • http://!)! Passing By

    sari -

    As with pornography, I know “evangelicalism” when I see it.

    That’s sort of a serious statement, which makes sense to me partly because I’m a life-long Texan. But there are definite markers, listed here. That link is Protestant, but there is also an Evangelical Catholicism.

    Tmatt has frequently noted the theological and organization complexity that surrounds the notion of “evangelicalism”, so I’ll stop there, although it’s tempting to riff a series of “you might be an evangelical” jokes. :-)

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt
  • sari

    Thanks for the links. Interesting that the authors make a strong distinction (p.9) between Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism, two words that are often conflated.

    Evangelical’s meaning has become rather fluid; the listener/reader must use context to infer meaning rather than rely on a fixed definition when reading the paper or watching the news. It was a serious, not loaded, question. For instance, others here have stated that Christians cannot be evangelicals, yet I remember a movement years back which self-labeled as charismatic Catholic and which seemed similar in outlook to other evangelical Christians. Thanks, Passing By, for confirming my memories.

  • John Pack Lambert

    Of course, since the Catholic voters have been almost entirely ignored, who are we to say they all would be willing to vote for a Mormon?

    Catholic priests and bishops may not be speaking out against voting for a Mormon as are evangelical leaders, but many of the stories about Mormons include negative spin on beliefs in a way that is clearly meant to inflence Catholics against voting for Mormons as well.

    Of course, we really do not know since this issue has been so under studied. This might be a story that some journalist could right. Go interview some Catholics in Iowa and ask them about what they think of Romney, whether they object to having a Mormon president, and so forth. It is worth a try at the least.

  • John Pack Lambert

    Sioux City, Iowa does have a large number of Hispanic though. I am not sure what percentage are citizens, what percentage of those work at the meat packing plants (the main place Iowa Hispanics work) at times that would allow them to show up for the Caucus, and what percentage of those would participate in the Republican Caucus, but it is probably above “absolutely none”.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    I have now spiked about 4,000 words worth of non-journalism related commentary on this thread alone by John Pack Lambert.

    I am not amused.

  • http://faithvictoria.wordpress.com/ Steve Weatherbe

    Okay, so I’m a Canadian: I tune in to U.S. news only sporadically. Therefore I was taken aback by what is apparently common knowledge: how openly biased is MSNBC coverage. Rachel Maddow especially shocked me. She is fun to watch because she is having such fun and is so interested in politics. But her dismissal of the ideas of Rick Santorum as “weird” exemplifies the true problem with partisan journalism. Her curiosity about politics stops at Santorum. She simply has no interest in exploring the roots on opinions she strongly disagrees with–specifically those about life issues. Santorum’s views on contraception, demographics, same-sex marriage and so on, these are standard Catholic teachings or stem from them. As journalism, dismissing them as “weird” or “extreme” without acknowledging their cultural context just doesn’t cut it.
    In contrast, I read a quick post-Iowa take on Santorum in the New York Times which was entirely fair, even thoough, I’m pretty sure, the Times takes as dim a view of Santorum as Maddow. The point is, the NYT didn’t let its opinion get in the way of its job. Maddow, when abortion/women’s reproductive rights comes up, does.

  • John Pack Lambert

    Since the definition of Evangelical is central to journalists commenting on it, I think treating actual explorations of what the meaning of Evangelical is as “non-journalism related” is a bit much.

    What it boils down to is the definitions people give for Evangelical do not limit the term in the way people actually use it. I think “right wing Protestant” or “religiously conservative Protestant” would be better terms depending on what exactly people are going for.