Former Vermont governor and Democratic Party boss Howard Dean said Thursday that Jesus was “probably to the left of the Democratic Party.”
Mr. Dean told a panel on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the Democratic National Committee conducted its own polling a decade ago to figure out why so many Evangelical Christians were reluctant to vote for Democrats.
“Let me share some incredibly interesting polling data we got ten years ago when I was running the DNC. I was wondering why evangelicals didn’t vote for Democrats because if you look at the red-letter version of the Bible, Jesus was probably to the left of the Democratic Party,” Mr. Dean said.
“So we did polling. And here’s what we found. This is ten years ago. Evangelicals over 55 it was all about abortion and gay marriage. Evangelicals under 35 in this country, the number one issue was poverty, the number two issue was climate change,” he added.
The conversation on Jesus was prompted by President Obama’s comments on poverty while at a Georgetown University debate on Tuesday. The program was part of the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty.
“There’s a lot we can do [to help the poor]. The question is, do we have the political will, the communal will to do something about it?” Mr. Obama said, USA Today reported.
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• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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