As John McCain and Barack Obama get close to choosing their running mates, they are weighing numerous factors: region (do they help carry a pivotal state?), expertise (strong where the nominee is weak?) and ideology (do they help with independents? Or the base of the party?). This year, to a degree rarely seen, they are also assessing the prospective running mate’s religious background or appeal to particular religious groups.
Here is a guide to the religion factor in the vice presidential selection for John McCain (Obama’s will be published in a separate post).
John McCain is now earning less support from white evangelicals – by about eight percentage points – than George Bush had at this point in the campaign. While they’re avoiding McCain, they haven’t yet signed on with Obama. So, McCain can, and must, get some of those evangelicals back. He’s also in a tough battle with Obama over Catholic voters, again doing a bit worse than Bush had. The most commonly cited choices:
Mitt Romney – Though he might help McCain with money and Michigan (where he grew up), choosing Romney might make winning evangelicals harder. Mormonism is still viewed as a cult by a meaningful number of evangelicals, and, ironically, Romney exacerbated the problem when he spoke about Christian faith. He is also viewed as recent and possibly insincere convert on abortion. On the other hand, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada – newfangled battlegrounds — all have large Mormon populations, and other evangelicals seemed quite fond of him during the primaries.
Mike Huckabee – No one would make white evangelicals happier. The former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher is popular with rank and file conservative Christians (though less so among evangelical leaders). A recent Zogby poll reported that Huckabee would help McCain with this group more than any other candidate. The problem is: he’s intensely disliked by economic conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
Tim Pawlenty — If McCain wants to appeal to evangelicals sans the potential baggage of Huckabee, he may turn to Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. He belongs to the church whose pastor is the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, and his wife is an outspoken born-again Christian. (“I have an incredible feeling that God has trusted me to do this job.”)
Charlie Crist — The governor of Florida helped McCain win the crucial Florida primary but is unpopular with religious conservatives. Though he’s pro-life and against gay marriage, he supported civil unions for gays, suggested the state shouldn’t spend more money on trying to ban gay marriage and rankled conservatives with an aggressive platform of government intervention on the environment. He recently became engaged to a woman but for most of the last 30 years he’s been a bachelor, prompting questions throughout his career about whether he’s gay. He says he’s not, but the issue may still be a concern to religious conservatives.
Joseph Lieberman – If McCain want to buff up his maverick credentials by picking a non-Republican, Lieberman is a leading possibility. The Democrat-turned-independent might help marginally with Jews (though he’s quite a polarizing figure in the community now) and might help McCain win Florida (though he wasn’t able to do that for Al Gore). Religious conservatives would be conflicted: They generally have loved Lieberman for his religiosity and strong support of Israel, but he is pro-choice, which is pretty much a litmus test for a Republican vice presidential candidate.
Eric Cantor – If McCain wants a Jewish running mate who isn’t pro-choice on abortion, then he might select Rep. Eric Cantor. The 45-year-old congressman from Virginia jumped onto VP lists after it was confirmed that the McCain campaign had asked him for personal information. Advantages over Lieberman: pro-life, young, Republican and from a battleground state.
Bobby Jindal – A conservative Catholic convert (from Hinduism), the Louisiana governor is popular among conservative intelligentsia and would likely excite both evangelicals and Catholics. Liberals were relishing poking him for a participation in an exorcism but his devout faith has mostly won him fans. However, the 37-year-old recently pulled himself out of the running, citing his commitment to governing Louisiana.
Adapted from Political Perceptions, the political commentary area of The Wall Street Journal Online