Hillary Clinton’s faith-talk continues, with televangelist-worthy invocations of God’s name, and so do the long media meditations on what it all means. The latest example of Hillary-decoding comes from The Village Voice’s Kristen Lombardi, in a feature story, “God is a Centrist Democrat.”
Most of Lombardi’s article is given over to the conventional wisdom on Clinton: that her newfound religiosity is a means to move her image, and that of the whole Democratic Party, to the center, and close the infamous God Gap. The usual suspects make an appearance: poli-sci professors speculating on “moral values,” DNC talking heads who support Clinton’s shuffle right, and everyone’s favorite “left-leaning evangelical,” Jim Wallis. They all sort of say the same thing: good on Clinton for challenging the party to “broaden its vision” and appeal. The rest of the party — that is, those Democrats who aren’t self-flagellating — are absent from Lombardi’s article, and she notes this, writing that “the factions you’d expect to question that approach are staying out of the debate” for now, and “that leaves” her quoting the super-centrist wonks who are willing to talk. Lombardi goes a little deeper than most God-gap articles though, acknowledging Clinton’s long history of religious talk, praise of faith-based initiatives and half-hearted support for abortion rights: reminding sad liberals that if Clinton’s centrism is selling out, then she sold out a long time ago. What’s of most interest in Lombardi’s article comes almost as an unrelated coda: a consideration of Clinton’s speech last January at a Boston fundraiser for Reverend Eugene Rivers III’s urban youth-outreach program, wherein the Senator invoked God’s name half a dozen times and once again lent support to Rivers, one of Massachusetts’ most vehement opponents of gay marriage. Such camaraderie with Rivers, whose views on gay marriage have been compared to those of Alan Keyes, should have prompted more protest from liberal Democrats, writes Lombardi. But strangely, most GLBT groups have been as silent as the other leftist groups Lombardi tried to contact for comment. This reluctance of liberals to criticize the vocal centrism of Democrats like Clinton seems like a more interesting angle than whether or not Hillary can pole vault across the gap — and it seems like what Lombardi was trying for — but until they’re willing to start talking, we’ll be stuck reading about Hillary’s prayers.