Or should that be, it’s the stupid evangelicals? Democrats would have us believe not only that the reason Bush won the presidency was the “evangelical vote,” but also that these evangelicals are under-educated, red-necks incapable of higher level intellection. This is obviously self-serving because it allows the liberals to think they hold the smart point of view and the reason they lost the election had something to do with a stupid populace. The smart, talented portion of the population voted for us so all we have to do, going forward, is educate the rest of the people.

I distrust polls precisely because I don’t know who the pollsters poll. I have never been asked a single question by a pollster. Actually, I have never even known another person who has been contacted for such opinions. That was true until last night when I heard from a woman I know that she received a pollster’s phone call a few days after the 2004 Presidential election. Her answers to the pollster’s questions shed some anecdotal light on the question of just who these evangelicals who voted for Bush are. But before I get into the questions and answers, a little about her background is instructive.

During her life, my friend has lived exclusively in northeastern “blue” states and been at different times a stay-at-home mom, a widowed, employed single mom, a married and employed mother, a divorced empty-nester, and a semi-retired though currently employed married person. She is approaching the age when one begins to ponder social security income. But she is a highly educated woman who has earned a masters degree and nearly completed an engineering doctorate. Her political views favor the more conservative point of view but she is hardly a staunch right winger as she is somewhat socially “progressive.” In short, her politics do not fit neatly into either party’s agenda. Some years ago my friend found tremendous comfort during a difficult personal time in regular church attendance. Her church has historically been fairly apolitical and while its religious doctrine can hardly be characterized as fundamentalist, the church is commonly known as “Evangelical Lutheran.”

The pollster who contacted my friend had a series of questions which asked who she had voted for in the election, as well as a little about her personal background in order to calibrate her responses and shed light on the reasons behind her vote. Obviously, they wanted to know who she voted for, which was Bush. They asked her a little about her financial situation – she is employed but does not earn a huge salary, having changed careers recently. They asked a question about her religious practices. Did she attend church regularly? Yes she did. And how would she characterize her church, Catholic, Jewish, “Evangelical” or “Other?” After a moment’s hesitation she said, “I guess the right answer would be evangelical since I belong to an Evangelical Lutheran church.” End of poll! No questions about educational level or the nuances of her decision to vote for Bush. Just a few short, mostly objective questions.

I imagine workers compiling the data from the pollster’s work. (Yes, I do understand that this is done by computer program.) My friend’s page of responses is pulled from the general pile and the placed neatly into the growing “evangelicals” pile! Assuming that these polls like many, many others are compiled from the answers of around 1,000 people, my friend’s responses are representative of something like 3,500 others from her home state or 100,000 people around the country as a whole.

The possible extrapolations of her answers are staggering. I now know, for example, that when the Democrats speak of evangelicals, they are speaking about me even though I haven’t regularly attended church in longer than I care to admit. Maybe the conclusion to be drawn from all this is that 51% of us are evangelicals. Or perhaps a better one is that the Democrats are still completely clueless!