“No party can own any faith.
”The letter closes by noting, “With voters entering polling sites in Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina in the coming days and weeks and Super Tuesday following shortly thereafter, it is imperative for you to remedy the imbalance in your exit polling immediately. Evangelicalism is not a monolithic movement that fits neatly into one party.”
The reaction from the recipients thus far?
Chuck Todd from NBC -- the only one to respond so far -- wrote back, "I will share this with the team... thank you for your concern."
No word at all yet from any of the other networks. Michael Mokrzycki, AP's director of polling, declined to give details about how the group came up with its questions, but said "if you've seen the questionnaires it is clear we're working with limited real estate and thus must make judgments about priorities."
Given the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson-James Dobson history of religion in politics, the idea of an Evangelical Democrat may well seem counter-intuitive.
But we have a right to expect that the people whose work informs us about our political landscape -- and the journalists who use that work as the rationale for many of their own conclusions – keep their knowledge base current.
The times, they are a-changin.’
Or are they?
There is a larger point to this debate. Here’s how it’s seen by Rev. George Hunsinger, a professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary:
“I think the essential point would be that there are no religious qualifications for holding public office. JFK made that point years ago while Romney recently fudged it.
“Whether there should be questions about religious affiliation in exit polling is less clear. In exit polling as it is currently conducted, perhaps best not.
“But the larger problem of exit polling and superficiality, like the problem of TV candidates' debates and superficiality, is the real nub. If we take the Lincoln-Douglas debates as a standard, we can begin to gauge how far our public discourse has fallen.
“The superficiality of our public discourse -- and especially the slide toward tabloid news coverage -- can hardly be seen as an accident. Our rulers clearly want a general public that has no interest in genuine thought. That way we, the people are more easily manipulated and controlled. Call it creeping Orwellianism.”
Amen!
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