c. 2006 Religion News Service

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio _ Russell Mossbarger, a Republican regular, in 2004 saw President Bush as a man who reflected his own moral and Christian religious beliefs. But then, he says, his party overplayed its churchiness.

“People got tired of it all the time,” says Mossbarger, 71, in a bowling alley near Springfield, a small industrial city that is one of Ohio’s bellwether communities. “They wore it out, I think.”

A Free Will Baptist, Mossbarger wears a ballcap with the American flag. He worries that, among other things, politicians will try to take “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

“But this year other issues are more important,” he says. “Jobs are leaving the country. There’s war. It’s doubtful the Pledge of Allegiance is more important right now.”

Two years after Republicans fused love of God and love of country into such a potent political message in Ohio that national Democrats were discombobulated, the combination of patriotic and religious fervor seems dimmed. Now, with a midterm election approaching and one of the hottest U.S. Senate races in the country being waged, there’s not much being said on the campaign trail about the “three G’s” _ gays, guns and God _ in any part of Ohio. Here in this chunk of southwest Ohio, there’s barely a peep about abortion or other moral issues, either.

“Actually, I’m not hearing anything. You just hear the usual kind of stuff, like the economy,” says Linda Rosicka, Clark County’s election director.

Whether or not the primacy of social issues was overstated in 2004, those issues have largely fallen off the stump in this year’s election.

When they do come up, it’s usually in ways that are less public, such as in gatherings of Christian conservatives supporting Republican Ken Blackwell’s gubernatorial campaign.

Republican Sen. Mike DeWine, an ardent foe of abortion, hasn’t launched any ads or campaign offensives using social issues, but he says he talks about them when asked. He didn’t hesitate in an interview to criticize his opponent, Democrat Sherrod Brown, on one such issue, saying Brown has failed repeatedly to vote to outlaw late-term or so-called “partial-birth” abortion.

“There are fundamental differences between Congressman Brown and myself, and one of the fundamental differences is he voted to continue to practice partial-birth abortion,” DeWine says.

Brown’s campaign says that’s because the bill did not allow an exception for the health of the mother.

Social issues still could become crucial behind the scenes in coming weeks, when interest groups try to motivate members to vote for the sake of balance on the U.S. Supreme Court or constitutional battles over abortion rights and gay marriage.

But voters rarely hear those issues mentioned in politicians’ speeches, in political news stories and commercials, even in talk around the town square.

The reason is pretty simple, say political experts. It’s the economy. And the war in Iraq. And the war on terrorism.

“To some extent, that’s what people are hearing,” says Brian Nienaber, a vice president of the Tarrance Group, a Republican-leaning Washington polling firm that tracks voter concerns. “They’re hearing the news every day about Iraq, they’re getting their paycheck every week” and making decisions about taxes.

“In times of war it is hard to think, `What kind of social direction should our country be taking?”’

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, says born-again, evangelical voters still care deeply about social issues. But, Lake says, “the next tier of voters, the kind of blue-collar, exurban voters who take their kids regularly to church, they’re really economically hard-pressed. So when you look at this data” from recent bipartisan polling, “they’re saying the country’s worse off economically. They’re saying that their own families are not better off.”

Regardless of whom they blame for that, “they’re starting to focus on and vote a lot more on economic issues,” Lake says.

Of course, abortion, gay marriage, gun rights and fights over religious symbols and words are not the only social issues that can light up a campaign. The minimum wage goes to the heart of a social issue, says the campaign of Brown, the Senate candidate.

“He’s met and held events with ministers and pastors across the state in churches on those issues,” says Brown spokesman Ben LaBolt. “He believes it’s a moral imperative to support working people.” DeWine also supports the ballot measure to raise Ohio’s minimum wage.

Social issues, some say, are a luxury, best saved for different times than these.

“These are serious times,” says Ted Strickland, the Democratic candidate for governor. “We’ve got the deficit, the debt, the stagnant wage growth for Americans, the continuing quagmire in Iraq, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, and now we’ve got North Korea doing nuclear tests and rattling the sabers.

“College tuition has exploded, and on and on and on. In light of these incredibly serious issues, many people have decided that we can no longer afford to use our energies and our efforts to argue about polarizing, divisive social issues.”

Back in Springfield, inside a used car dealership, Barbara Courtney, a self-described Democrat, says hot-button social issues subsided after the 2004 election, when voters approved a state constitutional ban against gay marriage.

“The voters stopped it and there are other things on people’s minds now than all that this year. There’s a war and it hasn’t stopped. It’s still going on. There are so many people unemployed.

“They aren’t praying to stop the gays. They are praying for work.”

(Stephen Koff and Bill Sloat writes for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)

KRE/RB END KOFF

Editors: To obtain photos of Blackwell, Strickland, DeWine and Brown, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.