The demographics of a movement - Christian Right - Christian Right Special Report

After glancing over his shoulder for the ninth time and seeing the posse again breasting the last foothill, Butch Cassidy finally turned to Sundance and said: "Who are those guys anyway?" Butch's concern over the newly found persistence o this particular posse made him urgently curious about the group's composition. The country's established political leaders are acquiring much the same attitud about the Christian Right.

The Christian Right is an ill-defined group that appears to have been a part of the political landscape since the late 1970s and early '80s, when the National Conservative political action committee (NCPAC) and the Moral Majority began to organize social conservatives with a religious bent. It has ebbed and flowed in importance, but now appears to be on the upswing again.

These groups were first heard at the ballot box in 1978, when they knocked off few big-name liberals in the Senate. And in 1980 they helped propel Ronald Reagan into the White House and Bob Dole into a new role as majority leader of Republican-controlled U.S. Senate.

For the first half of the '80s, this apparently large bloc of voters shifted, changed, and developed new groupings and leadership. They did not, however, appear to develop into a stronger political group, largely because there were few "dragons" that needed slaying in the mid '80s. Social conservatives were already in charge of the agenda, by controlling the Presidency and the Senate.

In the last half of the decade, the "liberal" Democrats re-took the Senate and there was a power play for who would succeed their hero Ronald Reagan. Christia activists got back into the political game, a development best exemplified by Pat Roberston's attempts to take over GOP parties at the state levels. A vivid example was the Robertson-instigated donnybrook at the Michigan Republican Presidential caucus. At the same time, Christian coalitions began to concentrat on local political situations as social and school issues began to appear on ballots.

Manna from Heaven

The Bush administration appeared to mark a low-key consolidation period for the Christian Right -- and then Bill Clinton got elected, bringing electoral manna from heaven for the wandering right. Clinton, with his big-government policies and "far-left lifestyle," was the ultimate dragon around which the Christian Right could organize and build. And they did, with gusto. Notably, the Republican state parties in Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia and Minnesota were assaulted by the Christian Right and taken over.

The question remains: Who are these people who seem to wax and wane in politica importance, depending on the political mood of the country? Can they maintain their power? When and where are they important? Are they growing? How might the change politics, parties and policies?

Pollsters have had difficulty measuring the Christian Right, religious right, religious conservatives or whatever name is applied to this group by either its proponents or

PERCENTAGE OF VOTERS WHO ARE "BORN AGAIN" CHRISTIANS

ABC/Washington Post(1)
(June 1994)

Nationwide                                 32%

Region:            East                     16
                   South                    45
                   Mid-west                 34
                   West                     22

Gender:            Male                     29
                   Female                   35

Income:            [greater than]30K        38
                   30-50K 30
                   [less than]50K           24

Race:              White                    31
                   Black                    49

Education:         High School              34
                   Any College              26

Party ID:          Democrat                 35
                   Independent              27
                   Republican               38

Ideology:          Conservative             45
                   Moderate                 27
                   Liberal                  26

(1) "Do you consider yourself a 'born again' Christian or not?"

Pollsters have had difficulty measuring the Christian Right, religious right, religious conservatives or whatever name is applied to this group by either its proponents or opponents. The terms are essentially interchangeable, but nonetheless ill-defined. The figures below show the size of this group and its demographic profile based on a June 1994 ABC/POST national survey:

First, these results show that the 32 percent of Americans who consider themselves born-again Christians are spread throughout the electorate more than might be expected. A higher proportion of blacks fall into this definition than whites. This is one reason why there is a significant number of liberals and Democrats among the "born agains" rank and file.

But if blacks are excluded from this group (for analytical purposes), the rank and file appear to be concentrated largely among the following types of voters: southerners, middle income, conservatives, Republicans and independents.

These findings are not surprising, given the anecdotal information about where the political activity of the Christian Right has occurred recently.

The real question is how the Christian Right is defined; in other words, who belongs? Some pollsters have used religious preferences (concentrating on Baptists, evangelicals and fundamentalists) to measure membership, others simpl ask voters if they are "born again" or "have they had a personal experience wit Jesus Christ." Others use level of attendance at church. And some develop indices that are combinations of those questions. These different definitions make if difficult to trace or trend the growth of these groups over time, but for the most broadly defined group, Gallup has shown growth in what they refer to as the "born-again" and/or "evangelicals" over the past decade.

This difficulty in defining the Christian Right also points out what is true of any political movement. All political parties and movements have a large base o voters upon which to draw (based on the general congruence of issue positions) and a smaller group of activists or shock troops. This also appears to be true of the Christian Right. There is a large group -- nearly half the electorate -- that fit the broad definitions of religious feeling or membership as Gallup defines the Christian rank and file. But as the definition narrows, especially when commitment to action is implied (membership), the proportion drops dramatically -- to less than 10 percent. This latter group is the likely target market for Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition.

Shock Troops

As in any political movement, issue congruity can be demanded of the activists and shock troops. This makes a movement very powerful in small settings where activists who pass the litmus test operate. But when the electorate expands and they need to reach the majority of their own base vote, they face a difference in saliency on the very family/religious values which hold them together in the first place.

Most of these rank and file Christians hold the same basic traditional and mora values as many of the activist Christians, but other issues such as the economy jobs, international relations, or environmental matters are as likely to be salient to many of rank and file Christians, causing them to split off and vote separately from their leaders when a) the political mood is unique and/or b) there is little perceived threat to the basic values in society.

While scant public data is available, it is clear that the non-black activist element of the Christian Right is operating within the Republican party. These "new Republicans" are just that, new. Some are former Independents who were activated by their negative reaction to jarring social and cultural change in the country, while others are former Democrats, especially in the South, who finally could not withstand their own internal dissonance with their party's liberal position on many social issues.

William Hamilton is president of Hamilton & Staff, pollsters in Washington, DC. The company's analyst Charles Ellis assisted in researching this article.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
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