When you ask members of Congress to cast a politically challenging vote, they need reassurance that it's the right thing to do. As a candidate for president, Barack Obama infused his campaign rhetoric with moral appeals to spur social change. He saw politics as a way to achieve change on a grander scale than working as a community organizer, with universal health care as a tenet of civic religion.
Obama's ability to frame issues in a way that appealed to our better angels helped close what was dubbed the "God gap," the tendency of religiously observant people to vote for Republicans over Democrats. The phenomenon ensured George W. Bush's 2004 election, but by 2008, religious-right leaders were fading from the scene, economic issues had taken center stage, and Obama and the Democrats were actively reaching out to reclaim God as an impetus for their beliefs and values.
A new book, The Disappearing God Gap?, looks at religion in the 2008 presidential election, and how Obama used language and scriptural imagery in a way that spoke to voters who might not otherwise have been inclined to listen to a Democrat. The authors cite this passage from Obama's Philadelphia speech about race as the basic summation of the public role of his religious faith: "In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand—that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."
Obama was swept into office by what now seems a naive belief that he would find that common ground in Washington and till it for the collective good. It hasn't worked, at least not yet, and along the way he lost sight of the better angels and made deals with the devils. When the deals got exposed, he was left scrambling to reclaim what is good and moral about a health-care-reform bill that has gotten tainted in the public eye.
What's been lost in the legislative minutiae is the idealism that inspired so many millions to get enthusiastic about Obama and the promise he embodied. Controlling the cost of health care is critical, and that's what Obama focused on in order to win over the wavering Blue Dog Democrats and the red-state Democrats wary of the big-spending-liberal label. The numbers released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office back up Obama's claims that the bill will lower the deficit. The CBO numbers were the best news the Democrats have had in months.
But going forward—assuming the bill passes—requires a different strategy. Republicans will attack the bill for the taxes it imposes and for forcing everybody to buy health insurance, which the GOP will characterize as a loss of personal freedom. Obama has eight months to persuade voters that the landmark legislation and the steps he took to rescue the economy warrant the reelection of a Democratic Congress. A Pew Research Center survey finds the most frequent one-word descriptions of Congress include "dysfunctional ... corrupt ... self-serving ... inept."
Voters who were drawn to Obama and inspired by his rhetoric need to be reminded why they voted for him, and why he needs Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The God Gap authors highlight a 2007 speech Obama gave on the economy, in which he echoed FDR by calling for a "reappraisal of values" and a rejuvenated "faith" in working collectively to solve economic problems. He blamed special interests for skewing public policy toward the affluent, which is not only bad economics but "offends our morals."
In 1994, a tide of negative public opinion about health-care reform carried the Republicans to power on Capitol Hill. The New Covenant that Bill Clinton promised in his 1992 Democratic nomination acceptance speech lay in tatters along with his failed health care proposal. After the election, Clinton recast the Covenant—which not coincidentally has biblical echoes—to embrace smaller government. But whatever ideology it serves, the language of values that speaks to Americans of faith remains indispensable to presidential politics.
Eleanor Clift is the author of Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics and Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
