Shades of John F. Kennedy

Many commentators have noted the affinity evangelicals have for Rick Santorum. They have voted for him in large numbers because they apparently feel comfortable with his sincere piety. Although he is a Catholic, his biblical principles resonate with them on a gut level.
What the analysts have also noticed is that Santorum supporters are concentrated in agricultural areas. Although Rick regularly alludes to his coal miner roots, it is rural evangelicals who form the core of his support. Meanwhile, these same folks have been averse to Mitt Romney.
My first reaction was that this did not make much sense. Romney, after all, is a transparently moral person whose value system parallels that of evangelicals. Why wouldn’t they recognize this connection and reward it?
My wife provided what I think is the key. She was raised as an evangelical in rural Ohio. In fact, Santorum carried the county in which her parents have their farm.
According to Linda, she met no Jews in growing up. The few she knew about were doctors and lawyers. Nonetheless, they were not the ordinary folks with whom one regularly rubbed shoulders. As such, they were exotic. In other words, it was difficult for her neighbors to identify with them
This put me in mind of the fact that there are few Mormons in rural evangelical areas. As a consequence, they too would seem exotic. While the doctrines of the Mormon Church may strike many Christians as strange, it is probably more important that they have little contact with real live Mormons.
Then I made the connection with John F. Kennedy. When he ran for president, he too had difficulty with rural evangelicals. As Santorum himself reminded us, JFK had to go out of his way to assure these folks that he was an American before he was a Catholic. He essentially told them he could be trusted because he was one of them.
Even so, Kennedy had to select Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. Kennedy did not like Johnson, but he knew that without LBJ’s southern constituents, he was unlikely to be elected. Indeed, this strategy worked. In what turned out to be a very close election, these people made the difference.
To return to Romney, he too makes rural evangelicals feel uncomfortable. Its not just that he is rich and urban. Because his background is so different from their own, they wonder how he will govern. What, they ask themselves, does he really believe? Yet no matter how fervent his assurances, they cannot help but feel uneasy.
Here in Georgia the rural/urban split was once again on display. As was the case in South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio, urbanites heavily favored Romney. Actually, they did so in Cobb County. Despite the fact that there are many evangelicals in the Atlanta suburbs, as city dwellers they are comfortable with cultural disparities.
What explains the electoral discrepancy is thus rural isolation, not religion. But times change. As people gain exposure to outsiders, these aliens are transformed into normal human beings.
This is what happened to Catholics. Were once they were foreign to the rural South, today they are a familiar part of the landscape. As a result, rural evangelicals are not frightened by their differences. This is why so many have been able to embrace Santorum with nary a qualm. He is now one of them.
The same transformation is apt to occur with respect to Romney—assuming he is elected president. When people see him day-to-day behaving in ways they find beneficial, he too will be viewed as ordinary and safe. Once this happens, we as a nation will have taken another stride forward.
In the meantime, we are embarked on a learning curve. And make no mistake about it; if Romney gets the Republican nomination, rural evangelicals will vote for him in overwhelming numbers.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University