According to exit polls in the South Carolina Democratic Primary, Barack Obama carried virtually every demographic group Saturday. Young and old, men and women, wealthy and less wealthy, high school educated and college educated, those in the lowland and those in the highland, self-identified Democrats and independents, married and unmarried. Notably, he did not win the White vote, but he carried 27% of White men and 22% of White women -- both well above recent recent poll projections, a reversal of what usually happens to black candidates when actual voting occurs.
Obama's success among these voters is tied to the religious campaign he's been running in South Carolina and nationally, a campaign that regularly gets mentioned here. But here's a question that I don't think we've taken up here yet, and it's one that strikes to the core of this nation -- and many who frequent this community here. Could Obama, an African American man, be where he's at in this campaign without the decidedly Christian elements he's emphasizing?
No way.
The Democrats' exit polls are notoriously lacking in religious questions, so we don't have much to look at on that front. What we can see is that Obama carried 58% of the vote among people who attend religious services "weekly," 50% among those who attend such services "occasionally," and 38% among those who "never" attend such services. The vast majority of S.C. primary voters fell into the former two categories.
Religious faith is probably the second-greatest point of connective tissue among Americans -- behind the connection of nationality. Academics talk about elements that help people to form a shared social identity. More than 90% of U.S. adults consistently tell pollsters that they believe in God or a universal spirit, so being a "person of faith" connects more Americans than perhaps any single other thing.
That's perhaps always been so, but in the last three decades the religious connective tissue has become powerfully accentuated in American politics (as I document in The God Strategy: How Religion Became A Political Weapon in America). From Reagan to Clinton to GW Bush to a good number of Democrats in 2005 and 2006, an overtly public emphasis on religious faith -- what my colleague Kevin Coe and I call the God strategy -- works in American politics.
Further, for a minority candidate attempting to win votes from White Americans, the God strategy is essential. That faith connection provides a potent, to-the-core-for-many point of connection that allows -- indeed, often compels -- White voters to look at a minority candidate as fully human. The prejudices of race and ethnicity that run deep in this nation are not easily overcome, but one potent step to doing so is to invoke the better angels of our nature. I may struggle in my own selfish ways to overcome my prejudices, but when I see doing so as a "calling," then I simultaneously (a) reach deeper to do better and (b) gain anew a belief that anything is possible.
When Obama or any racial minority candidate invokes faith, White voters who take their religious beliefs seriously -- and there are millions of such voters -- are asked to step into a new realm of possibility. It's a brilliant backdoor way for a candidate to seek to circumvent racial prejudice. Sure, faith prompts some to be more prejudiced; I'm not denying that. But many read their sacred texts and draw from their traditions the clear message that God loves us all and sees no distinctions -- and wants us to follow suit.
Further, an emphasis on Christian faith is the still-untrumped entry point for African Americans into politics. Here's a great study waiting to be done: how many black Americans in Congress or who have run for president did so without an emphasis on Christian faith? I'd say the number is nearly zero -- with at least Keith Ellison in Minnesota guaranteeing one exception to my line of argument.
I think there is no possible way for Obama to be doing what he's doing without accentuating Christian faith. That doesn't lead me to think he's faking it; not at all. But it does lead me to give him some slack when I assess his religious politics that I'm less willing to grant to a White candidate. Religion and race are intertwined, and I think it's only fair to evaluate Obama -- or any minority politician -- in light of the cultural boxes they find themselves in.
Crossposted at streetprophets