Would Christian Fundamentalists Vote for Romney?

I often hear people say that the Christian right will never vote for Romney because he is Mormon. I think this is a bit of an overstatement and thought I'd write about why.

As I've said before, I grew up in the most conservative of rightwing Christian fundamentalist families/communities. People sometimes ask me what church denomination we belonged to. My response is usually that it was so small, no one has ever heard of it. But to put it in context - we thought the Southern Baptists were "backsliders."

One of the things this points out is that there is actually a lot of variance and disagreement within the Christian fundamentalist movement. Its true that they've banded together quite successfully when it comes to politics. But the divisions are there.

For example, Frank Schaeffer has written a lot about his father Francis Schaeffer who was a hero to the brand of fundamentalists I grew up with. Francis tried to style himself as an intellectual philosopher who could make his case for fundamentalism logically. The folks in that camp have serious problems with what might be called the pentecostal movement within Christianity, which is often very fundamentalist but much more reliant on emotion.

That's just one example, but since the whole movement is based on adherence to dogma, any slight variation in beliefs gets magnified.

So when it comes to Romney, I would imagine that there are some fundamentalists who would have a problem with his Mormonism. But I can tell you that as rigid as my family is about these kinds of things, they voted for him in the 2008 primaries. You have to remember that the fundamentalists hated John McCain - especially after his round with Bush during the 2000 presidential primaries. That left them with choosing between Huckabee and Romney. They were able to discern at that time that Huckabee wasn't "electable" (he was also more attached to that pentecostal crowd) and in their particular brand of fundamentalism, being rich is something to be admired. So they went with Romney.

I'd suggest that if my family can support Romney, there are many fundamentalists who would.

I don't think they're going to this time around though. But that has more to do with some strong political changes since 2008 than it does his religion. One change is the emergence of the Tea Party. We all know that it has its moorings in right wing christian fundamentalism. So it has given some power and voice to that movement that wasn't there before.

But I suspect that another factor is something Richmond Ramsey identified as Fox Geezer Syndrome. Ramsey is a young conservative who writes at Frum Forum. He notes that he and his friends have seen a change in their parents politically lately.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been keeping track of a trend among friends around my age (late thirties to mid-forties). Eight of us (so far) share something in common besides our conservatism: a deep frustration over how our parents have become impossible to take on the subject of politics. Without fail, it turns out that our folks have all been sitting at home watching Fox News Channel all day - especially Glenn Beck's program.

Used to be I would call my mom and get updated on news from the neighborhood, her garden, the grandchildren, hometown gossip, and so forth. I’ve always been interested in politics, but never had the occasion to talk about them with her. She just doesn’t care.

Or didn’t. I don’t know when it happened, exactly, but she began peppering our conversation with red-hot remarks about President Obama. I would try to engage her, but unless I shared her particular judgment, and her outrage, she apparently thought that I was a dupe or a RINO. Finally I asked my father privately why Mom, who as far as I know never before had a political thought, was so worked up about Obama all the time.

“She’s been like that ever since she started watching Glenn Beck,” Dad said.

I started to wonder how common this Fox Geezer Syndrome was. I began to poll conservative friends of my generation who had right-wing parents. At least eight different people – not an Obama voter among them, and one of them actually a George W. Bush political appointee in Washington – told me that yes, they had observed a correlation between the fevered emotionalism of their elderly parents’ politics, and increased exposure to Fox News.

Now I'm not a conservative (and I'm a bit older than Ramsey's friends), but boy, could I relate to that!

So I doubt my family will be supporting Romney in the primaries this time. But it will have more to do with the epistemic closure created by like-minded friends all getting their news from Fox and believing that indicates their movement is large enough to actually elect someone like Perry or Bachmann and less to do with his religion.