Even though the Christian right has been quiet this election , they are still very powerful and may surprise us all with a massive turn out on election day. All you have to do is go back to that scary day in August when the two major candidate for President of the United States took their religious test for office to understand that religion is actual increasing, not decreasing, its power in our election system. I refer of course to the interviews with Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church, in which the candidates were asked such questions as "what does it mean to give your life to Christ"? Both candidates knew they could not refuse the invitation and retain any chance of winning.
McCain's selection of the otherwise unqualified and off-putting Sara Palin, is another testament to the rising power of religion. The Republicans knew they could not win without satisfying the Christian right, even if satisfying them risked losing independent and moderate voters McCain will also need to win in the end.
As an organizer for LGBT rights, I used to covet the ready-made political gatherings the religious right holds every Sunday morning. Barack Obama may be able to draw and amazing 100,000 people to a rally, but Christian right preachers draw 30 or 40 Million fundamentalists and evangelicals every single Sunday.
Do not doubt the churches' ability to influence and motivate those voters. Do not be surprised if they are engaged in a concerted effort to keep quite and sandbag everyone with massive turn out on election day for McCain. If nothing else, an unexpectedly huge Christian right turn out on election day could provide exit-poll coverage for Republican vote-counting shenanigans to turn certain counties and precincts to McCain.
RACE- AND TERROR-BAITING
This one I don't need to go into much. I am afraid that a larger number of white voters than we want to believe will not be able to vote for Obama in the end, based solely on his race. McCain's revolting attempts to essentially call Obama a terrorist, combined with the whispers that Obama is a Muslim might also tip enough voters, added to the rest, to carry McCain barely over the top in final vote count in several close states.
The question is, what happens next? Will the American people really be willing to sit quietly and pretend that 7-10 MILLION of their votes simply do not matter? If the results in one or more of the final battle-ground states looks suspicious, or if the courts swing the election to the Republicans again, will we still just meekly sigh and resign ourselves to complete futility?
What about already repressed African-American and Latino communities? Would they view this as the final, unbearable proof of their official status as second-class, invisible discards, causing them to engage in civil disobedience? What about all the newly exited young voters supporting Obama, will they rise up in frustration fueled by youthful energy and courage? Will the most talented and desirable begin fleeing the country? Would progressives rally real protests, civil disobedience and strikes? Is it conceivable a Democratic majority in Congress would challenge the results and seek to overturn them in Congress? Would President Bush order the army to brutally put down protests, force workers back to their stations, arrest members of Congress and stop any election contests?
I don't pretend to know the answers to any of these questions, but I think we should prepare ourselves, at least mentally and psychically and somewhat materially, for this or another similar election scenario in which the voice of the people is repressed, unheard, ignored or just plain overruled. The Third Army approaches our shores on election eve for a reason. This might be it.
