I think it is fairly obvious that one strong component in why race is such a factor is how blacks who regularly attend theologically conservative Protestant congregations generally choose to be Democrats.
On the other hand, I think that it is as accurate to characterize the Republicans as white and the Democrats as non-white as it is to characterize the Republicans as heterosexual and the Democrats as non-heterosexual (which is to say that I think either characterization is foolishness). Run the numbers and tell me what % of people who voted for John Kerry in 2004 were white Christians.
Identity politics will always work against the Democrats so long as you paint Democrats as everything not white, Christian, and straight. One tactic which I advocate is to narrow the field currently filled by "Christian." We should try to peel off Catholic and mainline Protestant and leave only conservative evangelical Protestants as the religious component of the Republican Party. The tendency of the secular, the unchurch, and the non-Christian to lump all of Christianity together in a monolithic entity is as flawed as those fans of racial/religious profiling who want to believe that all Arabs and Muslims are inherently predisposed to hate America. (8:05 PM)
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