Anchorage Daily News

Up to now the socially conservative base of the Republican Party has not been thrilled by John McCain and many were not motivated to vote this election. But Karl Rove has struck again. Or, if it wasn't Rove who engineered the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's vice president running mate, it was some other Republican strategist who understands how to break the 50-50 tie between Obama and McCain. Rove and fellow Republican operatives are masters of engineering election results and have developed a strategy that involves energizing the socially conservative fundamentalist right to vote and engage in late-election swift-boating.

Rove was dissatisfied with the Christian right voter turnout in the Bush-Gore election that ended in a virtual tie, ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. Consequently Rove developed a strategy that proved successful in the subsequent Bush-Kerry election. He knew two things: the religious right, like no other voting bloc, can be motivated to vote and that there are three issues that will bring fundamentalist Christians to the ballot box in droves: homosexuality, abortion, and evolution.

None of these issues are legitimate concerns of the federal government and should not make any difference in presidential qualifications. But this strategy rests on assuring a chosen segment of the electorate will actually vote, not just respond to polls saying how they intend to vote. Rove chose homosexuality and manufactured the same-sex marriage issue which, before he made it so, was a local issue at best, and all of a sudden gays and lesbians were kissing on the national news. That fired up the Christian right to vote, and along with some well-orchestrated swift-boating, secured the election for George Bush.

In selecting Sarah Palin over a hundred better qualified candidates for vice president (half of whom are female), Republican strategists have now chosen abortion as the issue to assure the socially conservative fundamentalist Christian voting bloc will turn the election to McCain.

When she became pregnant Gov. Palin had just been elected to her first statewide office in Alaska and faced some controversial issues. With four kids already, one in the Army headed for Iraq, and a husband whose work and avocation takes him from home for weeks at a time, she had a lot on her plate. But she didn't quietly go to a clinic and abort her Down Syndrome fetus. And when her baby was born she announced "God chose us to have this baby." That statement will resonate with the fundamentalist right throughout America. Social conservatives will state "she's one of us" and they will be resolved to go to the polls in November and cast their ballot for the McCain-Palin ticket.

Most of America accepts a high degree of individual agency in its personal and political decision-making and would see the decision to have an abortion or not as a personal choice, not God's choice. But much of fundamentalist America turns to the concept of God's will for a plan for themselves and the country. Neither Obama, Biden, nor McCain apparently subscribe to this form of religious determinism, but by her say-so Sarah Palin does. So it doesn't matter how many gaffes she makes on the campaign trail in the face of media scrutiny or hard questioning by Democrats, she is the embodiment of the unifying principle of the fundamentalist right -- God has a purpose and humans are meant to enact that purpose.

All this would be a moot point if Sarah Palin were qualified to be president of the United States. But her first speech to reveal her thoughts on any national or international issues was at the Republican convention that nominated her. As Maureen Dowd wrote so pointedly in the New York Times, the image of Gov. Palin staring down Vladimir Putin over war in Georgia is a little unsettling.

And were she to ascend to the presidency she would appear to become the first president in history to pray, not for wisdom, but for the direction of God's will -- which is quite a different thing. And that is an equally unsettling proposition because the subconscious seed of that will is planted in the megachurch pulpits of America by spokesmen for the religious right.

Alan Boraas is a professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College.

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