Faith Matters in Iowa

Since I’m part of the faithy Dem clique, it would be convenient for me to claim that Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses because they were the most overtly religious candidates in the race.  So I won’t.  But I do think faith played a factor — obviously with Huckabee, but in a subtle way with Obama as well.

First, the obvious: faith was crucial for Huckabee today.  If you look at the GOP base as a coalition of economic royalists, foreign policy imperialists, and conservative culture warriors, Huckabee has credibility with just one faction: the culture warriors.  He’s a Southern Baptist preacher who rails against abortion and gay marriage yet decries the Bush administration’s foreign policy as “arrogant” and waxes compassionate on social welfare spending.  He’s not getting his votes (or money – what little there is of it) from either the “Nuke their ass, take their gas” crowd or the me-first money changers in the GOP temple.  Huckabee is the pro-life, anti-gay guy.  On the issues, at least, that’s the appeal.

The role of faith in Obama’s victory isn’t as overt.  He hasn’t been talking about faith much lately over the last few weeks; the message has been all “change” all the time.  And the faith contingent isn’t as organized or well-defined on the Democratic side, particularly in a state like Iowa with precious few black voters.  So Obama didn’t win because of faith, per se.  But he owes his victory in no small measure to the perception that he can appeal to a wide cross-section of America — and his well-publicized faith outreach efforts have helped contribute to that perception. 

After all, the man has campaigned from the beginning as someone who’s comfortable talking about his Christian faith and how it informs his politics.  He made a major faith speech at the 2006 Sojourners conference, participated in Sojourners’ presidential forum earlier this year, organized a series of forums about the role of religion in politics, and launched a gospel concert tour to celebrate “faith and family” in South Carolina.  (Set aside the fact that the gospel tour embroiled his campaign in controversy when one of the performers was found to hold anti-gay views; the tour nevertheless reinforced Obama’s religious bonafides.)  By the time Iowa rolled around, Obama had established an image as a bridge-builder who can transcend traditional divides between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans.  And faith had something to do with that.

I’m not saying faith was the be all end all today.  But it mattered.