Forget New Hampshire as a bellwether. Look to Maryland.
Giving new meaning to former House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O?Neill?s dictum that “all politics is local,” Maryland?s 2006 elections ? especially as they relate to the religious vote ? may actually model what?s in store for the country in 2008.
“I think that this emerging change in mind-set,” Southern Baptist Convention political maestro Richard Land recently told Time magazine of coalescing religious right-Democratic Party trends, “could pay tremendous dividends if the Republicans are foolish enough to nominate Rudy Giuliani.”
Land was surveying the portentous realignment of religious right frustration with the Republican Party, the ascendance of Democratic Party social justice staples within evangelical ranks, and the likely neutralization of abortion as a watershed issue with the nomination of a fence-sitting Republican.
He could have been talking about the 2006 gubernatorial election here, where a nominally pro-life incumbent governor, linked to Republican Iraq war policy, faced a pro-choice Catholic challenger ? and was handily beaten.
Which is exactly what the Democrats hope to duplicate on the national level next year, though their base ? wary of any backsliding on right-to-abortion entitlements ? may not be entirely in step with the party?s prodigal son posture.
Leaders nevertheless are pulling out most of the stops to re-engage a 55 million-strong demographic that, until recently, had largely dismissed them as irreligious.
“I think you can see the general trend of evangelicals and many religions moving toward Democrats because they see that Democrats have a strategy for helping working families obtain a quality of life,” Maryland Democratic Party Acting Executive Director Sue Levitan said.
Levitan insisted that this “inclusive,” pocketbook-oriented approach nevertheless was succeeding in traditionally Republican strongholds, where 2006 gubernatorial election results did register upticks for Democrats.
“It?s hardly believable that the party that supports gay marriage, abortion-on-demand and removing all public prayer has any hope of gaining the Christian vote,” said Maryland State Sen. Andy Harris, who represents Republican-leaning Baltimore and Harford counties.
