NEW YORK (ABP) — Many Christian conservatives have put her in the “anyone but” category — they'll vote for anyone but Hillary Clinton. However, progressive Christians, who some think should be the senator's natural allies, aren't jumping on her bandwagon either.
While Clinton might win some evangelical support if she can portray her faith as authentic, say political observers, she simply must win support from progressive and liberal Christians to have a chance of gaining the White House.
Clinton's campaign is aggressively cultivating progressive Christians, who are enjoying some time back in the spotlight after years in the Religious Right's shadow. But so far, such Christians' response to the New York senator has been tepid. Even some Baptist feminists are saying they have yet to warm up to her.
Rachel Agee, a progressive Baptist who is “a little bit feminist,” says Baptist women have “a general dislike, or maybe it's a distrust,” of Clinton. Agee, a graduate of conservative Union University, says she gets the feeling that Clinton doesn't have “a huge fan base of Baptist [or] Christian feminists.”
“We don't want to see just any woman in the White House. We want to see the right woman in the White House,” said Agee, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., and maintains the blog martiniministry.wordpress.com.
“We want a woman to at least have as much chance as a man of being elected,” she said. “We want a woman to be able to be taken seriously as president. As a Christian, I would like to see someone, male or female, who has a God-base.”
Clinton's recent public demonstrations of her faith suggest she knows what she's up against.
In 2006, the United Methodist senator hired a Southern Baptist-turned-Methodist “faith guru” for her campaign staff. She regularly participates in an elite prayer breakfast with several well-known conservative policy makers. And she has spoken to historic African-American congregations — like a recent address at First Baptist Church in Selma, Ala., for which critics accused her of affecting a Southern drawl.
Becky Garrison, senior contributing editor of Christian satire magazine The Wittenburg Door, says those efforts may not be enough. Garrison said her progressive evangelical and secular friends are “very disgusted” with Clinton, feeling she is too moderate and has compromised too much with conservatives.
And when it comes to faith, Garrison added, her friends tend to admire second-place candidate Barack Obama (D-Ill.) instead.
“I think now is the time for her to be genuine and sincere about it,” she said. “Barack Obama — his faith strikes you as being genuine. That's what he is.”
Many progressive Christians are attracted to Obama, who has a more liberal voting record than Clinton. According to the National Journal, he earned a rating of 86 (with 100 as perfectly liberal) in a 2006 tally. Clinton earned a rating of 70.2.
Others say Clinton's perceived aloofness is a main reason why more women haven't jumped to endorse her. The perception of Clinton as an overly scripted candidate doesn't set well with evangelicals, said Garrison, who wrote Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church.
“Hillary is too polished. Very cool. There's just something about her that people don't like,” Garrison said. [Former Texas governor] “Ann Richards said it's because she's a strong woman, but I don't know why.”
Agee, on the other hand, said Clinton's manner is not the primary issue in her lack of enthusiasm for the senator.
“I'm not curling up with you at night, and I don't need a best friend in Washington,” Agee said. “I need someone I feel comfortable with around the nukes — and my womb.”
But Emily Hunter McGowin, who has written articles on feminism and the gender of God for The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics, said Clinton's demeanor is a sign of effectiveness and strength.
“I admire her very much on a personal level, despite what people perceive as coldness,” she said. “I think she's a woman worthy of admiration. She has endured a lot and come out on top.”
What's more, a double standard comes into play here, McGowin said: Women are often harder on other women than on men for acting firm or outwardly unemotional. Hillary Clinton remained calm and collected in public during her husband's sex scandal, but many Christians saw that as an effort to minimize the effects of her husband's infidelity.
Her critics seem to agree Clinton's handling of the scandal was the turning point for her political aspirations — and her dualistic persona. Her strident support of her family during the debacle and her willingness to capitalize on the public's sympathy was a change from her early professional autonomy. It endeared her to some women — and distanced her from others.
“I think there's a little bit of disrespect for her for the way she stood by Bill for all his indiscretions,” said McGowin, who teaches a women's Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in Fairfield, Texas. “[Women] are much more critical. We can come down on either side. A woman can be too homely or not feminine enough, but on the other side, we criticize them for being too strong, too assertive.”
Conservative Russell Moore, theology dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has also commented on the senator's problem appealing to women. In a column for the Henry Institute, Moore wrote that Clinton faces a balancing act between the “feminism of Hillary Rodham” and the less threatening “feminine familiarity of Mrs. Clinton,” the former first lady.
It wasn't always like that. Clinton became successful by virtue of the feminist movements of the 1970s and '80s. But that may not help her now, as former allies distance themselves from her.
Clinton's wooing of moderate voters, particularly on the issues of the war and abortion, has led staunch feminists like Nora Ephron and Jane Fonda to recant their previously enthusiastic endorsements. Fonda recently compared Clinton to “a ventriloquist for the patriarchy” in The Nation.
The gender issue cuts both ways for Clinton, Garrison of Wittenburg Door said. These days, “there are women who say, ‘I don't want to be seen [only] as a woman. I want to elect the person who is the best candidate,'” she said. It's notable, she added, that no progressive evangelical group has publicly endorsed Clinton — or any candidate, for that matter.
While Clinton's role as wife still matters to many, Garrison said progressive Baptist women seem not as concerned with Clinton's marriage as with political issues.
“I don't think progressives care about her marriage,” Garrison said. “They care about the war on Iraq, her stance on the environment, her stance on immigration. The election will prove how united they are.”
Like modern Baptists, McGowin said, early Baptist feminists would probably have been “concerned by the perception of Clinton being more hawkish,” especially in light of Clinton's recent refusal to rule out the use of nuclear weapons.
“Baptists have been fairly consistent about the value of human life…. And that includes war,” she said. “As a Christian committed to a consistent ethic of life, that [stance on nuclear weapons] makes me nervous. That probably would have made my Baptist foremothers nervous also.”
Another feminist concern about Clinton as president pertains to the office itself: If a woman gets the top spot, will it mean other women's-rights frontiers are forgotten?
Not necessarily, Agee says. She said she has come full circle, from discomfort with having a female pastor to the belief that “this country needs a woman in the White House.”
“As a Baptist Christian feminist, if I had my 'druthers, I'd have a well-qualified woman in the White House with a belief in God but a tolerance for other religions, and [who] didn't hate homosexuals, and who believed in a woman's right to choose but enacted strong gun-control legislation,” she said.
That's quite a high demand, but Clinton has surprised people before. Garrison, who lives in New York, said she never thought Clinton could get elected senator there.
Even Moore, the conservative, conceded Clinton is “the first female candidate with a conceivable chance” of making it to the White House. “If anyone can pull this off, convincing the American people of a triangulated ‘third way' of feminism without fear, Sen. Clinton can,” he wrote.
Only time will tell.
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