Young, evangelical ... for Obama?

Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man.

He's a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he's breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.

"I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University.

Dudley's disenchantment with the GOP isn't unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.

But, Howard Dean, don't count your chickens quite yet. College-age and 20-something Christians may be leaving the GOP, but only 5 percent of young evangelicals have joined the Democrats, according to the Pew survey. The other 10 percent are wandering the political wilderness, somewhere between "independent" and "unaffiliated."

Shane Claiborne, a Philadelphia Christian activist and author of "Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals," has a different name for these folks: "political misfits."

Claiborne has traveled around the country the past several years, speaking and preaching mostly to college-age Christians who are "both socially conservative and globally aware." That makes them disenchanted with both major parties, he said.

"It's not about liberal or conservative, or Democrats or Republicans," he said. "I don't think it's a new evangelical left. ... There's a new evangelical stuck-in-the-middle."

UW communications professor David Domke said some young evangelicals are breaking with the GOP for the same reasons many people broke from the party in the 2006 legislative elections — the unpopular war in Iraq; the Bush administration's abysmal approval ratings; or, now, because of the tanking economy.

Others broke from the party when John McCain, who hasn't held much appeal for evangelicals in the past, became the presumptive nominee.

The Arizona senator hasn't been a consistent foe of gay marriage, and he supports federally funded embryonic stem-cell research. James Dobson, head of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, announced in February that if McCain was the GOP nominee, he'd sit out the election.

But students at a recent bipartisan political union meeting at SPU say there's something more going on with young Christians than disenchantment with McCain.

In an informal poll of the political union, the majority supported Obama.

"I think it's a new movement starting," said Amy Archibald, 19, a sophomore at the evangelical school. "Most of us would never blindly follow the old Christian Right anymore. James Dobson has nothing to do with us. A lot of us are taking apart the issues, and thinking, 'OK, well, [none of the candidates] fits what I'm looking for exactly.' But if you're going to vote, you've got to take your pros with your cons."

Eugene Cho, a founder and lead pastor at Seattle's Quest Church, which caters to a predominantly under-35 crowd, urges young Christians to look beyond the two or three issues that have allowed Christians to be "manipulated by those that know the game or use it as their sole agenda."

"While the issue of abortion — the sanctity of life — must always be a hugely important issue, we must juxtapose that with other issues that are also very important," Cho wrote in his blog on faith and politics.

Polls have shown that young Christians aren't any less concerned about the "family values" issues that have traditionally driven Christians to the Republican camp. (In fact, a study by the Barna Group, an evangelical polling organization, shows young Christians are actually more conservative on abortion than their elders.) It's just that they're also concerned about issues such as social justice and immigration, issues traditionally associated with Democrats.

Judy Naegeli, 25, who works at a Christian philanthropy, says easy access to information about the world via social-networking sites, YouTube and blogs is the reason her generation is more concerned with social justice.

"It's changed our perspective. ... Each generation chooses their cause, and ours is AIDs in Africa, or poverty or social justice," she said.

Tyler Braun, 23, a Portland seminary student who opposes abortion and gay rights, said he'll probably vote for Obama because, since he'd would like to see U.S. troops leave Iraq.

Anika Smith, 23, who works for a think tank in Seattle, said she's concerned with the same issues, but she plans to vote for McCain:

"I'm worried about the war and the economy and social-justice issues. But, the abortion issue is still nonnegotiable."

Nathan Johnson, the executive director of the King County Republican Party, says he is skeptical that young, socially conservative Christians will desert the GOP this fall.

He agrees young Christians appear to be looking beyond the two or three issues — abortion, gay rights, stem-cell research — that have made Christian voters loyal in the past. "But that doesn't mean they're no longer Republican.

"Once the primary is over, and we get into a head-to-head contest, Obama's voting record will come to light," said Johnson, 24. "Then there will be a lot of young conservative voters who won't be able to tolerate what he's stood for in terms of abortion and other socially conservative values."

Young evangelicals are more of a swing constituency than they've been for decades, said Andy Crouch, an editor at Christianity Today, a national evangelical magazine.

"This could turn out to be the election where both parties realize that the evangelical vote is so hopelessly split down the middle that it's not worth courting them at all because what parties need are blocs that can be appealed to en masse," Crouch said. "Paradoxically, evangelicals would become less relevant than ever before."

Braun, the seminary student, said he's not totally committed to any candidate yet.

"I just keep thinking, if Jesus were alive now, he wouldn't necessarily be voting Republican," he said.

1. The movie Love Actually. Every time I see it referred to as a great romantic comedy, or great comedy, or good in any way, I just cringe. I thought it was terrible.
   
   I actually saw it in theaters with my friends, who liked it. I thought it was crap then too. I saw it again on cable, to shut up the people who told me that I hadn't given it a chance (people always say that when they like something crappy and you don't. Of course I gave it a chance. I paid the overpriced movie theater ticket to see it, didn't I?). I never saw so many talented actors in one so bad a movie. The various plots were barely strung together, and every single one of them was unbelievably trite and pitifully written. It may have been the writing or the directing. It may have been the fact that so much talent in one picture (Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, etc., etc.) was so totally and utterly wasted. Either way I hope I never see such a saccharine, overhyped letdown ever again. It does go to show that talent is not always so powerful as to completely stop a trainwreck.
   
   
2. Hillary Clinton's experience. If I marry a politician, will that make me a good president too? Take away the "experience" she got by virtue of being married to Clinton, and she seems to have only a bit more experience than Obama does.
   
   
3. Jennifer Aniston's beauty. She seems like a nice person, and I enjoy her tv show and some of her films, but she's not that pretty. I don't know why people keep saying she's so beautiful. She looks quite ordinary to me.
   
   
4. Anti-French sentiment. "Freedom Fries"? Insulting anything remotely French? WTF? Remember the Revolutionary War? Which country was it that helped us successfully fight off the British which led to the creation of a little thing called the United States of America? Hm. Plus, I've been to France (OK, for one day). It's a really pretty country. Sure, I got sick at that one restaurant, but that doesn't mean the people weren't hospitable or that it's not a really nice place to visit. I did find the stereotype of the rude Frenchperson to be untrue. Everyone we ran into there was perfectly nice. The French don't agree with everything we do. That doesn't mean they suck.
   
   
5. Anti-American sentiment. By the same token, it seems in vogue around the world, and even among some Americans, to automatically bash everything America does, is, or stands for. You know something? This is not a perfect country. It does make mistakes. But it's a pretty great country and it's full of good people too. America often leads in humanitarian missions when disasters happen; America feeds a good portion of the world with its crops. Whenever I go out of the country I see some product, TV show, or some sort of emulation of something that had its start in America. I'm getting a little tired of seeing our country and our culture being sneered at.