Is America facing a 'God - void' ?

Not my term but an expression used by Britain's 'Daily Telegraph' to describe the choice facing Republican voters at the next Presidential election in 2008. For the last thirty years the Republican Party has put forward a candidate for whom Christian faith is at the very heart of his personal appeal. George 'Dubya' Bush talked about 'Christ being his favourite philosopher' but there is a strong rumour that this is because it's the only name he could spell. Ever since the 1970s most Republican candidates have carried their Christian credentials around with them and thus had a massive inbuilt advantage from the strongly conservative church-going element that dominates the United States.

Now it looks as if things could change. Neither Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson are regular church goers and both are divorces.








John McCain has publicly scorned the 'evangelical wing' and is also a divorce. Mitt Romney is the only candidate who is deeply religious but Romney is a Mormon and that church does not find favour with many of the religious right, particularly the 'deep water Baptists'.

In fact, as the Telegraph points out, it looks like the Democratic Party has the 'God squad' edge this time with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama being regular church goers AND both only once married.






The fact that Mrs. Clinton is married to a serial adulterer with a taste for pretty interns is hardly her fault..but whether it will gain her sufficient sympathy with right wing America who hated her husband is doubtful..and of course she is a woman. Mr Obama on the other hand may be morally blameless and thus a sound choice for the faithful...but then he is black. Is the conservative core of white America ready for that?

The current fear in Republican circles seems to be not so much a swing to the Democrats in terms of numbers but a massive apathy abstention by their core vote, the great and the good churchgoers of middle America saying 'a plague on both your houses' and not voting at all.

Certainly to me, 3000 miles away from the US, the scenario for the next US election is quite fascinating. Whoever the Democrats pick of their front runners, assuming it to be Obama or Clinton, if they win it will be a milestone in the American political scene, a major milestone in breaching the white male hegemony of the Presidency and if the Republicans win again, they will have overcome the most appalling legacy of incompetence left to them by any Republican Administration for many years....and without a clearly charismatic candidate with which to do it. And if the GOP does win in 2008 - after the Bush legacy - the Democratic Party must surely be rocked to the core and will need to take a long hard look at itself and what it needs to do to capture American trust.

At least, if the 'Daily Telegraph' is right the next election might possibly be won on political issues and not by 'God leading the way'. I have said this many times but 'God' is wonderful if you need Him as a personal path through life and I respect the views of those to whom God is important.

It worries me more than a little though when God tells Presidents of the United States what to do and when that faith leads them to doing Richard the Lionheart impressions in taking on the 'infidel'. I'd rather trust in sound earthly based common sense myself.