It was a both a proof-of-concept and a prophetic warning for the Democratic Party. In the minds of many on the American left, the GOP, dominated by the Christian right, is a dwindling revanchist bastion of retrograde white supremacy. Although that faction still is significant it is well on the way to political irrelevancy within the party because, in 2008, an emerging ethnically and racially inclusive form of the Christian right flexed newfound electoral muscles and won.
The left has not noticed, and so the new tendency appears to be laying plans for a Republican resurgence in the 2012 presidential election. As described in Charisma Magazine,
"Noting that the black and Latino vote was critical for passing Proposition 8, California pastor Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said the ballot measure was a perfect example of the power churches have when they work across ethnic lines."
"Here's what this election demonstrates--white evangelicals by themselves cannot win elections," Rodriguez said. "White evangelicals by themselves cannot preserve a biblical world view or a biblical agenda within American political and public policy arena. It is impossible. 2008 said it is over."
Indeed - because Rodriguez helped make it happen and, over the course of the next three years, the new tendency will probably come to prevail within the GOP and then launch the second bid, from Third Wave and New Apostolic Christianity, for the United States presidency.
Sammy Rodriguez is an exceptional powerful public speaker who has, it would seem, studied at length the oratory of Martin Luther King Jr. and intends to try brand the anti-abortion movement as equivalent to the Civil Rights Movement. The leadership of his NHCLC is on most issues except immigration hard right and so Rodriguez' organization serves to pull the 10 million Hispanic evangelicals and 5 million Hispanic charismatic Catholics the NHCLC purports to represent in towards right-wing ideological positions.
General wisdom from the left now holds that the right will work to whip up populist discontent. But, neither Democratic Party nor progressive political activists on the left seem fully aware of the nature of an emerging threat, that Republicans will increasingly gain support among ethnic groups which have traditionally voted for the Democratic Party.
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