Jul 8, 2008
Evangelical Christians and the 2008 Election: My Simulation
Based on a USA Today Gallup Poll, the following were selected as the key issues for the presidential campaign:
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Who would do a better job on:
Source: USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,625 adults June 15-19. Margin of error: +/- 3 percentage points. |
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If these are the issues we have before us, then how will Evangelicals balance their priorities among these issues? One could argue for a moral angle on each issue, even if there’s a separate “moral values” slot, which I’m guessing covers abortion and other conservative favorites.
In light of the upcoming election, I’d like to play a bit of a game. I’m going to pretend that I’m actually voting for each candidate, and then I will provide reasons for my choice of each. My angle will be one of a political moderate or independent, committed to his Evangelical faith. In other words, I’m going to play swing voter and try to discover what is appealing about each candidate. Since we have so many issues out there, I’m going to focus on the issues in this list.
My readers are welcome to play along, however, the rule is this, you can comment on why an issue doesn’t matter to you or why a candidate’s weakness in one area causes you to look elsewhere, but our goal is to map out scenarios, believable scenarios, in which an Evangelical Christian could feasibly vote for each candidate.
Game on!
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