I noted the other day that Sen. Ted Cruz is very effectively working the Religious Right, making sure they know he is one them. (And he is.) But it appears that he’s got some serious competition — and it’s not from Scott Walker or Mike Huckabee, the two candidates previously assumed to have the inside track with the conservative evangelical crowd. (As with most every constituency that was presumed to naturally be in his corner, Walker has stumbled badly with this group, but he’s plugging away. Huckabee just seems like old news.) Instead, Cruz — whose Iowa state chairman introduces him by saying that “God has prepared” him to “go to Washington and throw the money-changers out” — is being challenged for evangelical affections by none other than the billionaire braggart Donald Trump.
In South Carolina this week, Trump explained that evangelicals love him, and he loves them. And he loves the Bible more than anything, even his own book, “The Art of the Deal,” which he loves very, very much. He declined to identify his favorite Bible passages, because he says the Bible is so intensely personal to him, but he was more forthcoming awhile back when pollster Frank Luntz asked him if he’d ever asked God for forgiveness.
“I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so. I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t…” Trump said. “When I drink my little wine — which is about the only wine I drink — and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed. I think in terms of ‘let’s go on and let’s make it right.'”
His piety and spirituality are very moving.
The funny thing is that while it may not be quite correct that evangelicals “love” him, they are, so far, supporting him over the other candidates in the race. Last month a Washington Post poll had him at 20 percent support among evangelicals, followed by the far more doctrinaire Walker and Huckabee at 14 and 12 percent respectively. His poll ratings went up dramatically among Iowa evangelicals after his debate performance and leaders such as Franklin Graham have publicly praised him on Facebook for “shaking up” the race. This is a man who has been married three times, previously supported abortion and gay rights and has pretty much been a poster boy for urban, elite decadence. So what gives?
According to writer Amy Sullivan, who covers the religion beat, evangelicals are not that different from other Republicans, in that they are perpetually let down and disappointed in their leaders, but more than anything are just looking for a winner after 8 years of living in a liberal horror movie. Apparently, they are just as mad as hell as the rest of the GOP base and Lord knows Trump is the one who’s most effectively channeling that rage.
But this article in The Daily Beast, by Betsy Woodruff, shows that Trump has surprisingly been cultivating the religious right for several years, making substantial donations to various Christian organizations and reaching out to Christian leaders and organizations. All the way back in 2012, he spoke at Liberty University where Jerry Falwell Jr. called him “one of the great visionaries of our time” and praised him for his leadership and political skills in “singlehandedly forcing President Obama to release his birth certificate.”