Foley: the catalyst, not the cause

The new Gallup poll showing that Democrats are now dead-even among white, frequent church-goers is a bit astonishing given the decades-long advantage that Republicans have had on that group.  What’s even more astonishing is that most of the movement seems to have taken place over the last month.

One could advance a simple explanation for the change: the Foley fallout.  Foley’s a creep, Hastert covered it up, case closed.

But Josh Marshall is onto something when he says that explanation is a little too simple to be true.  Americans had been giving Republicans abysmal marks for months before this scandal.  An incompetent war, a corrupt Congress, an arrogant White House, a stagnant economy for average Americans — all this and more had long suggested that a Democratic takeover of the House and maybe even the Senate could be in the cards.  Until two weeks ago, one of the only groups that hadn’t completely bailed on the Republicans was white, frequent church-goers.

Why?  Denial is a powerful thing.  And this segment of the electorate — a good chunk of it, anyway — has long been quick to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt, no matter the evidence.  These were the Republicans’ people, and the Republicans were their party.  Turning against one’s own isn’t an easy thing to do.

And in a way, I don’t blame these folks.  Think about how African-Americans have stuck with the Democrats through thick and thin over the years, no matter how often our party seems to take them for granted.  It would take quite a lot of Democratic malfeasance to get blacks to bolt our party — and now, it would take just as much Republican malfeasance to do the same for many of America’s most religious white voters.

Post-Foley, though, there’s no more denying it.  The Foley scandal is the catalyst that has finally laid bare the hypocrisy of Republican values-speak.  A party that has succeeded largely by claiming a monopoly on morality cannot undertake such a long series of moral hijinks — from DeLay to Abramoff to Libby to Hastert — and expect to continue its reign.  Foley will not be the cause of the Republicans’ likely demise in November.  But he will have made it a lot easier for folks like us to make our case.

In the meantime, we can only hope that this change in the electorate signals a readiness on the part of millions of religious voters to think anew about what being a values voter really means.  Does it mean a devotion to two or three hot-button issues?  Or does it mean a commitment to justice, to the common good, to empathetic love?

Reasonable people can disagree.  But I and millions of others are going with the latter, and I suspect that more and more Americans will, too.