In another thread here in the GD, it was stated that an Atheist could get elected to a major office if she/he weren’t so “militant” about it.
Could a declared Atheist get elected?
How much of her/his belief system would have to be “hidden under a barrel” for this to happen?
Is a public declaration of atheism in and of itself “militant”?
Unfortunately, it seems an overwhelming majority of Americans equate a belief in God with morality, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Atheist, agnostic, godless heathen, pagan, and Satanist are all interchangable in their closed, fightened little sheep-minds. Dark, scary, immoral, ready to sacrifice your children to their evil master. Even though the good Christian politicians are also scary, immoral, hypocritical, and ready to sacrifice their souls to get elected, they will be elected as long as they are sugar-coated with a veneer of regular church-going and saying their daily quota of bible quotes.
So no, unfortunately, I do not think it is possible at this time. We can only hope for the future.
In a recent poll, 49% said they would vote for a qualified atheist candidate. So we’d have to vote for high voter turnout for that 49%…
Jello: Really? I gotta say that 49% is far higher than I would have imagined. Who did the poll? Hell, at this rate, I might actually be able to run for office in a few years.
Waste
Flick Lives!
Gallup did it, I think. I heard it on Larry King soon after Lieberman had been chosen. Topic was religion and politics, guests Bob Jones III (or maybe IV, I dunno what number he is), Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. (sp?) 92% said they would vote for a qualified Jewish candidate.
The question is would a atheist declare himself. With such controversial stances as teaching every child to read and nonsense commercials designed to give people a good feeling about the candidate I don’t think its going to happen.
There’s the rub . . . the word “atheist” itself is so loaded in our culture. Essentially, to a lot of American public opinion, anything beyond a polite i-respect-you-now-you-respect-me-good-for-you-if-you-believe position is “militant atheism.”
Even though as mentioned elsewhere in the thread a very large proportion of the population would be willing to vote for a qualified atheist, I strongly suspect that when it comes to the Presidency a lot of those people hold one or both of the following unmentioned qualifiers on the issue:
(a) our hypothetical atheist candidate would have to be the Colin Powell of atheists: charismatic, highly qualified, seeming larger than life, almost out of central casting;
(b) they are not really thinking of so much an “atheist”, but an agnostic secular humanist who follows no religion but ostensibly follows a consistent, structured moral philosophy AND (extremely important) respects and recognizes the various religious worldviews as valid alternative ways-of-life.
My guess is that if the hypothetical candidate said, categorically, “look, fellows, there IS NO such thing as a God or gods,” he’d be toast. Anyway anyone who’d act or talk condescendingly towards any religion (save probably the Church of the SubGenius 
) should not even bother trying.
BTW I suspect that a lot of Americans would prefer the “b” candidate above to someone from an “unusual” religion. My WAG is Americans can handle a Presidential candidate in any but the most extreme flavours of Christian or Jew, and in moderate Muslim. They’d probably be OK with Theravada or Zen Buddhists. But I fear that enough people to make the electoral difference, as of 2000 CE would still freak out at the thought of a President putting flower garlands on images of Siva and Ganesh; sacrificing chickens in a Santeria rite; attending a Wicca solstice gathering; or getting “cleared” thru Dianetics.
Anyway, folks tend to be stricter about what they want from a President than what they want from a governor, congresscritter or mayor. At those lower levels of office they’ll elect a Gay Socialist Pagan to six terms in office if s/he can keep the pork flowing in the right direction.
josé
Or Jesse Ventura
The Gay Socialist Pagans would be a good name for a band.
Dr. J
So watch it. There is a bumper sticker here in Minnesota something like that. 
He may have a big mouth, but he’s not so bad. And he did come out and say something about organized religion being a crutch. Which is a fairly courageous (but not tactful) assertion. He was already elected when he said it, though.
As to the question of the OP, the polls will say this 49% number, but I’m thinking the opposition would really capitalize on an avowed atheist running against them (and whatever else they could use for ammunition to assassinate character), and the person wouldn’t win.
I think the opposite is true. 49% is not high enough for a candidate to win with, but I think this number only reflects a hypothetical situation. If people actually got to know the athiest and considered him/her a decent person, I’ll bet that 49% would rise significantly. I think an athiest could win.
Okay, a few impressions and WAGs.
First off- that 49% is of people willing to vote for an atheist. I don’t think that number will go higher when that atheist gets known (as IzzyR posits); rather, it will get lower as said atheist actually gets specific on issues. Remember, in that same poll (according to Jello) a qualified Jew would get 92% of the vote.
Consider it conversely- 51% of Americans would not vote for an athiest, no matter his/her other qualifications.
Second off- remember that most Americans hear the word “athiest” and think of someone who fervently denies and disbelieves that any God(s) exists; the ‘soft athiest’ position that most people on this board ascribe to is considered ‘agnosticism’ by most Americans.
In other words, when the pollster asks about athiests, what people’s impression is of an athiest is not necessarily the same thing that athiesm is.
it is not so much that the canidate has to be good but he has to make the other canidate seem satanic
And of course the some religious groups equate “atheist” with “Satanist”, and would have no qualms whatsoever portraying the candidate as such. IMHO, any atheist would not only have to match advertising funds with the opposing candidate, but also with the combined monitary might of all the religious groups that would use this as a cause.
John Corrado wrote:
And if the candidate said he was “agnostic,” his opponents would accuse him of not being able to make up his mind. :rolleyes: