Dear Evangelicals...

This afternoon, our friends at Vote Common Good pulled the big tour bus up to the Miller Park Pavilion in Omaha and did an evangelical "Flip Congress" rally with progressive Democrat Kara Eastman. Tuesday the bus will be at Wichita Farm and Art Market Plaza in Wichita for a rally with another progressive candidate, James Thompson. Evangelicals haven't been seriously pursued by Democrats since Jimmy Carter ran for president. Vote Common Good is working to change that. They're still buzzing after their event in Sioux City with J.D. Scholten (in the middle):

VCG co-chair Samir Selmanović assured Democratic candidates this cycle that they "can reach religious and values voters in a grounded, confident, and impactful way. Addressing them directly, he wrote that "Vote Common Good is here to help you turn your perceived weakness into real strength. Vote Common Good team members have worked as pastors, coaches, activists, and spiritual directors for decades, and we are equipped with 'insider' knowledge, empathy, and the best practices of religious communication. As a part of our overall strategy, we want to help you tap into your authentic self when you communicate to religious voters. In front of any religious audience, your authenticity can become more compelling than the lingo, posturing, or hubris of your opponents." He went on the explain the VCG goal now:

Help Democratic candidates become more confident talking about religion in a way that is both authentic and persuasive to religious voters, particularly Evangelicals who are ready for your message. Many of them are on the brink of turning their vote to the left in order to follow their conscience, be faithful to their religious experience and story, and cross the line (in the booth or in public) to recover their personal integrity.

• We do this through coaching and advising, helping you as a candidate be in touch with your spiritual experience (for what it already is, nothing more), broaden your story, learn to articulate it in public, and connect with the religious sensibilities of the electorate.
• You can be you. And you will know how to “turn the table” of faith on Republican religionists so to speak. This is more simple to do and more powerful in its impact than most Democrats can imagine.
• We will help you ground and deepen your “presence” (presence eats arguments for breakfast) and tell a bigger story in which others can find themselves.

As a result, some previously Republican voters will flip their vote, some will stay home and not vote Republican, while some will double down their commitment against you and progressive values you hold. We are focused only on the first two groups. Offending (or often scaring) some in the third group is an inevitable byproduct of doing this right.

• The voters we want to reach have already begun to change on the inside. They only need to acknowledge what is already true for them and cross a threshold with their actions. Voting is that action.
• Many voters are not willing to take on more and more of the incremental fear dispensed by Republicans and much of the Evangelical establishment. Instead of trying to convince these voters with arguments on issues (level of mere reason), you will learn how to speak in a way that invites them drop into their formative faith (level of emotion, values, and social connections) and embody their faith in their political choices (level of behavior).
• You will learn how to help them cross the line by naming what they are right about, not what they are wrong about. We are asking them to manifest deeper loyalty to the religious/spiritual path they are already on. In their heart of heart, they can’t wait to migrate from fear to faith.

Importantly, in our experience, the voter impact for Democratic candidates working on this is vastly underestimated by most candidates. The margin for growth is huge. Teachings and values of religion in general, and example of Jesus in particular, now overlap with Democratic platform and values more than with the Republican. In other words, this effort provides a small lever to open a large door for Democratic candidates.

White evangelicals are a major part of the Republican base. Laura Clawson at Alternet wrote that "a majority of them [are] happy to excuse Donald Trump’s lying and infidelities and crudeness and general lack of anything resembling Christian values as long as he picks anti-abortion judges. But there’s evidence of at least a little erosion of rock-hard Republicanism among evangelical women in Texas, the New York Times reports:

“I care as much about babies at the border as I do about babies in the womb,” said Tess Clarke, one of Ms. Mooney’s friends, confessing that she was “mortified” at how she used to vote, because she had only considered abortion policy. “We’ve been asleep. Now, we’ve woke up.” [...]

“I keep going back to who Jesus was when he walked on earth,” she said. “This is about proximity to people in pain.”

Rep. Beto O’Rourke, running for Senate against Ted Cruz, is doing some careful outreach to women like Tess Clarke and her friends, including doing a podcast segment with a popular evangelical woman author. O’Rourke’s ability to appeal to such women-- even if some of them are keeping it hidden from the men in their families-- may be one more reason Republicans are pulling out all the stops to back Cruz, despite the fact that most people who know him dislike him, with John Cornyn, Cruz’s fellow Texas senator, doing a fundraiser for him hard on the heels of campaign visits by Donald Trump Jr. and Mike Pence.

In another sign of the tight spot Cruz finds himself in, the vaunted college debater who previously challenged O’Rourke to five debates has backed out of a CNN town hall event, leaving O’Rourke with an hour-long televised town hall all to himself. Not exactly what confidence looks like, but it’s true that the contrast of smarmy, smug, oily Ted with charismatic Beto might not be to Cruz’s benefit.