Ownership of Capital

Evangelicals Want Faith Rewarded

George W. Bush keeps talking about spending his newly-earned political capital--like the surplus, he's probably already spent it four different ways--but the Christian Right has news for him. They consider themselves responsible for his win and expect to be treated accordingly. They've caught on to the game I described yesterday:

In recent days, some evangelical leaders have warned in interviews that the Republican Party would pay a price in future elections if its leaders did not take up the issues that brought evangelicals to the polls.

"Business as usual isn't going to cut it, where the GOP rides to victory by espousing traditional family values and then turns around and rewards the liberals in its ranks," said Robert Knight, who heads an affiliate of Concerned Women for America, a Christian conservative advocacy group.

And if you don't think they're dead serious about having things their way this time around, consider this:

Bob Jones III, president of the Christian conservative Bob Jones University in South Carolina, recently urged Bush to purge moderates from the White House.

"If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them," Jones said in a letter to Bush after the election. "Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ."

Jones is referring not only to peripheral characters, but to the president's two closest advisers:

Adding wrinkles to their relationship with the White House, some evangelical leaders worry that Bush's circle of advisors includes aides who are insufficiently committed to conservative social values.

Some see Andrew H. Card Jr., the president's chief of staff and a former Massachusetts state legislator, as too moderate. They note that Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a lesbian daughter, has said that the issue of same-sex marriage should be left to the states, in contrast to evangelicals' call for a constitutional ban.

Their first target, though, is Arlen Specter. While I was hoping Democrat Jim Hoeffel would pick Specter off, I have to confess that I feel a bit safer knowing he's slated to become the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Which is why, apparently, the evangelicals who feel they own President Bush want him to push Senate Republicans to pass Specter over for the chair in favor of someone who observes the party's anti-choice orthodoxy.

The result of this fracas will tell us much about the power evangelicals will wield during this administration. Keep your fingers crossed that Specter holds on and gets the chairmanship. Anything else will mean very bad news for the future.