Hugh Hewitt makes an interesting point:
C-SPAN carried a forum last night moderated by the indestructible Marvin Kalb, which included Michael Barone, so I paused to watch.
The very last question was posed by a visibly angry woman of about 40, who demanded of the panel why discussion of religious voters never mentioned liberals or lefties who were religious, and always seemed to concentrate on the "religious right." (She might have said "radical religious right" but I can't be sure.)
Time was short, so no one really answered this, but I have heard this complaint over and over again. Look, it is a question of numbers. Faith-based voters certainly do exist within the Democratic Party, but they are the equivalent of African-American voters in the Republican party, a valued but by no means numerous group. Voters for whom faith is a huge aspect of their lives tend overwhelmingly to vote Republican these days. It isn't a conspiracy, and it isn't by any means a permanent alignment, but it is a real and significant feature of the American political landscape. Folks who pretend that there are huge numbers of religiously motivated liberal voters are just kidding themselves.
Quite so. In fact, many of the religiously motivated liberals we know refuse to identify themselves as Democrats, preferring instead to call themselves Independents or to align themselves with a third party. They are people who generally adopt a "seamless garment" approach to life issues, oppose war as a matter of principle, identify with the poor and the working class, hold a high view of traditional marriage and sexual morality, and eschew a politics of personal destruction. They certainly don't feel at home in the current Democratic party.
