Why don't Republicans go after the Atheist vote?

[CapnAwesome]

I am fairly conservative compared to other members of this board. I take sympathy with many conservative positions and often style myself as a Goldwater conservative. I think there are many other conservative Atheists, they just tend to call themselves Libertarians instead. However I, like most conservative atheists don't vote republican, because the party is openly hostile towards Atheists.

As a conservative the Democrats offer nothing to me, even as an Atheist the best I can say that the Democrats are not hostile towards me. That's it. In fact in recent years Democrats have become a more openly religious party. As both a conservative and Atheist, I find Obama's support and expansion of Bush's faith based initiatives to be completely disgusting. Many of my more liberal friends seem to be either unaware or to forgive Obama for this because once in a blue moon he mentions the existence of 'non-believers' in a speech.

What I was really wondering though was with the floundering of Republicans in the elections, and the fact that young people are overwhelmingly more secular and less Christian than their parents, why don't Republicans go after the Atheist vote? They have policies that could definitely be geared towards Atheists, such as a hostility towards Islam and mulitculturalism. Or are they just a bunch of old stubborn white men who are content on going down with the ship?

[frankiej]

Because we are in league with Satan.

[CapnAwesome]

Because we are in league with Satan.

Oh right, I forgot. Hail Satan!

[Angrboda]

I think there are a number of reasons, so I'll just start a list, albeit intentionally incomplete:

1) Atheists are still a hated minority; it doesn't serve any party's interest to embrace a minority hated by the majority,
2) Atheists don't form a cohesive voting bloc (herding cats, etc)
3) atheists don't have readily identifiable ideological leaders, so access is problematic
4) atheist's voting behavior is likely more reliably predicted by other demographic identifications (black, Hispanic, poor), and so you'd essentially be spending the same dollar twice (with less purchasing power) going after them
5) belief in their own propaganda; I think it's a common perception on the right that there does not exist a large contingent of dedicated atheists (much less the 'non-affiliated'), so for the conservative, the atheist pie simply isn't big enough or significant enough,
6) they already have strong ties to people of faith, who form a larger voting bloc, and whose affections would likely be estranged by openly courting atheists,
7) Atheists and atheism generally leads to controversy and conflict in a largely religious society, something which any politician (or business) would do well to distance themselves from,
...


If I think of others, I'll try to add them.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't know about that last bit. Those hookers seem to positively thrive on controversy and conflict. Hell, where there is none- they're always on hand to provide the spark then fuel the fire. If we all agreed on anything they'd be that much closer to unemployment.

[Whateverist]

As an theist, why should my religious standing count for anything at all when considering who to vote for? Since gods are non-beings, religion is an non-issue .. for atheists at least.

Admittedly politicians who attempt to establish religion or its values -because they are their religion's values- do rightly show up on our political radar. Stopping them is a valid concern, but it isn't as though there are any atheist values I want reflected in the government.

As a flaming liberal I can't imagine how the conservatives could ever use my religious views to lure me into their tent.

[CapnAwesome]

1) Atheists are still a hated minority; it doesn't serve any party's interest to embrace a minority hated by the majority,
2) Atheists don't form a cohesive voting bloc (herding cats, etc)
3) atheists don't have readily identifiable ideological leaders, so access is problematic
4) atheist's voting behavior is likely more reliably predicted by other demographic identifications (black, Hispanic, poor), and so you'd essentially be spending the same dollar twice (with less purchasing power) going after them
5) belief in their own propaganda; I think it's a common perception on the right that there does not exist a large contingent of dedicated atheists (much less the 'non-affiliated'), so for the conservative, the atheist pie simply isn't big enough or significant enough,
6) they already have strong ties to people of faith, who form a larger voting bloc, and whose affections would likely be estranged by openly courting atheists,
7) Atheists and atheism generally leads to controversy and conflict in a largely religious society, something which any politician (or business) would do well to distance themselves from,

One thing on your list that I take issue with is that Atheists (or other non-religious) don't vote as a bloc. I think they vote Democratic (or not at all.) If you look at these boards, you scarcely see a Republican Atheist (Tino) and a plethora of Democrats and some apathetic libertarians. Some of it seems to simply be because of Republican hostility. Strategically they might manage to drop that hostility from their platform and keep the religious vote. Karl Rove himself is 'not a person of faith' after all. Also the ties to religion doesn't particularly seem to be working, especially with an aging electorate.

[Minimalist]

why don't Republicans go after the Atheist vote?

Because their jesus freak allies would have a shit hemorrhage.

[Voltron]

They have policies that could definitely be geared towards Atheists, such as a hostility towards Islam.

Right, I can see it now, atheists across America getting in line to gang up on Islam with a bunch of Christian Republicans.

[Dee Dee Ramone]

Why doesn't the KKK go after the Black vote?