October 3, 2008

Richard Cizik, Vice President of Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals appeared on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” last Sunday to comment on the presidential election.  He included in his comments assorted reasons that evangelicals and conservatives—including himself, it would appear—might consider voting for Barack Obama.  The result was a pastiche of misguided thinking about voting. 

Mistake #1:  Ideas Do Not Matter

“I am a conservative,” Cizik reassured interviewer Liane Hansen.  “But that does not mean I am going to vote that way.”  That is, Cizik claims that he has a clear worldview—a conservative philosophy of public life and public morality, but that worldview does not determine the way he votes. 

This is the same as saying that ideas do not matter—or at least that they do not matter much.  Yet the history of the twentieth century is strewn with wreckage due to bad ideas.  Our struggle with terrorism is a battle of ideas.  Legislation is always produced based on ideas. 

Do we want to be governed by bad ideas or good ideas?  Contrary to Cizik, comparing a candidate’s worldview with our own is the critical factor in every voting decision. 

Mistake #2:  Personal Style

Cizik went on to say, “I could disagree with Obama, and do, on same-sex marriage and abortion, but that doesn’t mean that those issues alone vote against him because I think there are character and integrity issues that are even more important.”  In his comments, Cizik did not address “character and integrity,” that is, comparing the candidates’ virtues and finding one of them wanting.  Instead he talked about personality. 

Sen. McCain, he said, is “a bit of a warrior”; someone with a “warrior nature.”  Obama, on the other hand, “is a healer.  He is looking to build common ground, even with his opponents.  That is my personal style.”

So according to Cizik, it is McCain’s “nature” to be belligerent.  Obama, by contrast, is an amicable, healing presence just like… well, just like Richard Cizik.  But a winsome personality promoting bad ideas is a danger.  People discount a candidate’s ideology because they like him or her.  Election as a clash of personal style instead of a contest of ideas is the scourge of American politics in a video culture.  Promoting personal style as a way to decide between candidates only adds to the problem.

Mistake #3:  Moral Equivalence

“The Democrats have as many issues appealing to evangelicals as the Republicans,” Cizik told Hansen.  “On some issues of compassion, international and religious freedom, justice issues the Democrats weigh heavily.  On the sanctity of life and the protection of traditional family the Republicans are better.”