Q&A With Amy Sullivan

Remind me someday of what normal people do during lunch:

Washington Monthly contributing editor Amy Sullivan, author of "The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap," will be online Monday, Feb. 25 at 1 p.m. ET to take questions on her Outlook article about how the liberals surrendered religious voters to Republicans, the cost of that effort, and how evangelicals are beginning to return to the Democratic fold.

I'll be joining in on this instead.

UPDATE: Looks like my question made the cut ...

Houston: Your book seems to describe much of the problem that Democrats having with people of faith as one of the professional class of consultants and activists. Despite some of the improvements you note, what more do you see as necessary before this is alleviated and what do you envision the end-state to be in terms of Democrats and people of faith?

Amy Sullivan: I'm glad you raised this point. When people say that "Democrats" don't get religion, they're certainly not talking about the vast majority of Democratic voters (who are religious) or Democratic politicians (who are also mostly religious), but about the professional class of consultants and activists.

That's starting to change for a couple of reasons. For one, the consultants have always insisted that evangelicals and moderate Catholics would never vote for Democrats and should therefore be written off. But we saw in the 2006 elections that just wasn't true--in states like Ohio and Michigan, where Democrats actively engaged religious voters, candidates improved their share of the evangelical and Catholic vote by 10-15 points. Nothing changes the minds of the consultancy class like success!

But more importantly, Democratic politicians have been more willing to condemn their party's recent squeamishness about talking to religious voters.

As for the end-state, I refer to it as a leveling of the praying field. That means that the Democratic party shouldn't become the "religious party" any more than the GOP should. But people of faith should be able to have their voices heard just as any voters. And religion should no longer be a politically-divisive tool for politicians to wield. That's only possible if no party has a monopoly on religion.

Loads of good Q&A to read through on there as well.