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135 two roAdS diverged Religious Conservatives and the Carter Disappointment 4 Carter won in 1976 by fashioning an unusual coalition; attempting to hold it together proved to be among his most difficult tasks as president. Among the diverse groups he brought into the fold were progressive liberals, African Americans, moderate Southerners, as well as, to a slightly lesser degree, a newly involved group of religious conservatives who were increasingly willing to adopt a sustained political commitment. Carter, of course, had helped to validate evangelicals—the core of this latter group—as legitimate political players in the 1976 election. But throughout his term in office, one important thing became clear about this group’s new political commitment: as their focus on the issues of an emerging culture war increased, so too did their influence and ability to alter the terms of the national political debate. They began to fight the culture war in earnest in the late 1970s, and the political class began to pay attention. Carter’s broader electoral alliance was diverse with regard to these hotbutton issues, so attempting to appease the religious conservatives—with whom Carter in fact shared many similar religious beliefs—often put the President in a difficult political position.1 In light of this, Carter’s strategy was to chart a middling course, and this ultimately proved disappointing to a host of constituent groups—none more than the rising religious right. Although Carter’s coalition initially granted him broad support, it soon became clear that this support was also shallow, since it was based partly on Carter’s personal appeal and was tied so closely to voters’ reactions to Watergate and to Ford’s subsequent pardon of nixon, as well as to Vietnam and the credibility gaps of the Johnson and nixon presidencies.2 For many religious conservatives, Carter’s appeal was also based solely on the fact 136 g Stumping god that he professed a born-again faith. When the reservoir of public support proved unsustainable in the face of major challenges and the increasing conflict over the issues of the culture war, Carter’s moderate course proved troublesome. As aide Landon Butler put it, The middle ground was not the high ground during the Carter years. The political high ground was on the extremes of right and left. The middle ground simply was not the position of strength during these years. So as we addressed these myriad of issues, we had to have an ad hoc approach to every issue. . . . our rhetoric would be aimed in different directions. We would wind up with a hogde podge, ad hoc approach to our initiatives.3 As a result, Carter often found himself in something of a double bind by trying to stay near the center, and by 1979, liberals on the one hand seemed to be jumping ship by encouraging Ted Kennedy to run against Carter for the 1980 Democratic nomination, while religious conservatives on the other decided that Carter was, as pastor-turned-activist Tim LaHaye put it, “out to lunch.”4 even with the threat of losing both constituencies, Carter actually, in many instances, maintained his efforts to stay in the middle and keep the coalition together—at least partly because moderate positions reflected his own beliefs. Ultimately, however, he made decisions on hot-button issues that placated liberals far more than religious conservatives , since he did, to be sure, face the more immediate political reality of losing the nomination to Kennedy. Moreover, no one knew just how powerful religious conservatives could be until after they fully mobilized near the end of his term. The religious right’s full-on mobilization was in significant respects a response to Carter’s moderation, and this chapter explains why. After exploring the broader political context of the Carter administration , in which many groups perceived Carter to be weak and ill-suited to lead as president, I proceed by arguing that while the same held true for many religious conservatives, the primary reason why they abandoned Carter by the end of his term was that he and they advanced discordant philosophies on the mixing of religion and politics. Certainly, his perceived shortcomings on the economy or foreign affairs, for instance, contributed to Carter losing religious conservatives, just as they contributed to him losing many of his original supporters. But more than anything, what sent many religious conservatives searching for a new political ally was the fact that, in a shifting political milieu in which the culture war...

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