A former Bill Clinton adviser said this week that Hillary Clinton did a “miserable” job of reaching out to white evangelical voters in the 2016 presidential election.
In three short words, I can tell you why Hillary Clinton’s doomed presidential campaign never had the support of Christian voters: Convictions, Constitution, Credibility. Regarding two of those three words, Hillary has none. And for one of the aforementioned words, Hillary’s posture has been one of disregard, and when necessary, subversion.
If you want the evangelical vote, you must generally share (or at least try to understand) evangelical convictions. How could thorough-going relativists like the Clintons agree with God-fearing Americans on moral convictions? They couldn’t.
The heartfelt convictions of most Americans (about God, telling the truth, family, church, liberty, patriotism, ethics, etc., etc.) looks very much like the moral compass of our Founding Fathers and Mothers. And yet, candidate Hillary saw tax-paying, God-fearing “values voters” as the problem — deplorable, even.
If America’s 100-million-plus evangelicals wanted the morals of France, the health care system of Nigeria, the economy of North Korea, the cuisine of Sudan and the social climate of Iraq, we could certainly relocate to any of those places.
(Actually, those are places that we all go in order to serve others, dispense human relief and tell eager listeners about the salvation and love of Christ. Capitalism enables individuals and churches to achieve a level of prosperity so that we may serve others domestically and internationally — and we believe this is a good thing).
What is really miserable is the inability of the Hillary camp to “get it.”
Let me say this with all the emphasis that can be mustered — and what I am about to say comes from two decades of speaking before and with thousands of people annually in an average of 30 states per year — Hillary did NOT miss the votes of evangelicals because she is a woman. Hundreds of people with whom I and our staff spoke with said that it was her politics and personality that mandated a vote for someone else.
Hillary does not share the convictions of most Americans. Most feel that she would ignore or try and change the Constitution, and (this is a more significant problem than most on the left are willing to admit) most feel that she has little credibility.
The Clinton’s (and especially Hillary’s) absence of integrity is axiomatic. You wouldn’t trust Bill with your daughter; most wouldn’t trust Hillary with their Constitution. The average American and their values — things Hillary contemptuously sees as deplorable — were bothersome to the Hillary campaign.
Democratic strategists, pop media and whatever group of sycophants on Hillary’s staff insist that Donald Trump won because Hillary was a woman. False. The number of votes the electorate did not give her because she is a female is probably not even measurable. For patriotic evangelicals, the vote is all about the moral compass that has been under attack for decades.
All who aspire to elected office should unashamedly and humbly take a stand for God and country — instead of berating citizens who do not want leftists to reinvent it.
Dr. Alex McFarland is a religion and culture expert, director of Christian Worldview and Apologetics at North Greenville University, a national talk-show host, speaker and author of 18 books and the host of the Truth for a New Generation conference. For more information, visit www.alexmcfarland.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.