David Barton is perhaps in tune with the Christian community as much if not more than any faith leader out there, so Glenn asked him about the expected turnout for tomorrow. Will it be similar to 2008? Will there be fewer? Will there be more? Glenn talks with David on radio today and explains how the Christian vote could sway the election.
Full transcript of interview is below:
GLENN: Let’s go right to David Barton who, we know David as a historian, but David also is instrumental in helping people get out the vote and really you’ve been in politics for how long, David?
DAVID BARTON: Oh, gracious. Goes back to actively being on the, I don’t mean the inside but actually being more than a voter back to ’88.
GLENN: I mean, I don’t think you needed to swear, you know, a swear word for David. Gracious.
PAT: Gracious.
GLENN: Golly goodness, gracious me, let me think.
DAVID BARTON: That’s hardcore stuff, man.
PAT: It is.
GLENN: It is.
PAT: That was awful.
GLENN: Okay. So David, I met a lot of people over the weekend, and the people who I felt were spiritually attuned may not know why or anything else, but they are the ones who came up to me this weekend, because I was in three different cities. We probably met, or were around 20,000 people and people would come up to me and they would say, “Really what do you think? I mean, just, are we going to be okay?” And the ones who would come up and they would have some spiritual aspect of their life, they would all come up and say, “I can’t tell you why because, man, the press is saying this or that but, boy, I sure feel good about this. I just feel like it’s fine.” Are you finding that with your friends?
DAVID BARTON: Yeah, we are. And some of that is not only from those who just are spiritually attuned but those who are also spiritually attuned and on the ground. A lot of those folks are very intimately involved and have been for a number of years in running organizations that really get grassroots out and so they’re spiritually attuned but they are also very politically astute. And the people that are right in the middle of the trenches on this thing, not the pollsters, not the people making the calls or answering the calls but the people who are actually doing the groundwork, same thing. I mean, they feel really good. I was just checking this morning with several more of what are called the battleground states, and the folks on the ground in those places that are also good friends, that are also very spiritually attuned, same report from every single one of them.
GLENN: So David, what are you seeing? You told me something, I think it was in Missouri about the value voter guides?
DAVID BARTON: Right.
GLENN: Can you tell me that?
DAVID BARTON: Yeah. In Missouri at the height of back in the decade ago when Christian Coalition was really strong and I guess they are really the first ones to start using voters guides for conservatives, particularly social conservatives, and at the height of that movement, the most they ever distributed was 100,000 in Missouri.
GLENN: 100,000?
DAVID BARTON: And there was about 1.5 million distributed in the last couple of weeks in Missouri. I was in Ohio and just talking to their guys. They personally hand‑delivered to 9,000 churches 2.2 million voter guides, hand‑delivered to 9,000 churches who put those guides out. In 2004, the election in 2004, 28% of churches either put out a voters guide or told parishioners to go vote, whatever. In 2008, last election that was down to 14%. I don’t know what it will be this election, but it’s already blown the top off. And so those are the folks that are hardest to measure. Those are the folks who were the key of the 2010, they and the TEA Party. And they tend to be a lot the same. Like Brody said, they’re TEAvangelicals. So that group in 2010 instead of being the normal 24% of the vote that it is, it rose to 30% of the vote because they were so energized. And we’re seeing even greater energy in this election than we saw in 2010. So, you know, we won’t know until after tomorrow night to see how the numbers turn out. But at this point it’s blown through the roof. I talked to Pennsylvania this morning. They’ve put out more than a million social conservative voters guides in that state. I mean, all these numbers are just, they blow all other previous records apart.
GLENN: Okay. So let’s talk about a couple of states in particular. Do you think that it really is in play in Pennsylvania?
DAVID BARTON: I think it is in play in Pennsylvania. Just talking even to Catholics, some key Catholics last night and then some key evangelicals this morning, they think it’s down to the wire, but they are really feeling good of what they are seeing and they think it’s definitely in play. Could be a couple of points either way but they don’t think it’s a blowout for Obama by a long shot.
GLENN: I am ‑‑ I talked to you I think on Saturday. The New York Times did a piece on Sunday about me and my evil influence with evangelicals, which I think is laughable, especially since all the New York Times did was say that and then they talked to all of these so‑called evangelicals who proved the story wrong.
DAVID BARTON: Well, exactly.
GLENN: It was amazing.
DAVID BARTON: Don’t try to get logical with the New York Times.
GLENN: I mean, it was unbelievable.
DAVID BARTON: You can’t do it.
GLENN: I know. They were like, “Glenn Beck and his secret cabal has been working voodoo magic on the evangelicals.” And then they quoted evangelicals who were like, “Mormons are dogs and we should have them licensed and tagged.” What is ‑‑ I mean, who are these people in the first place.
But there is something that is ‑‑ I mean, David, when we first met and you went with me to that meeting with the evangelicals, that was, what, four or five years ago. It had nothing to do with politics, had everything to do with the march on Washington. And we talked about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I talked about Martin Luther King, and the spirit of all of us standing together and not trying to baptize each other or anything else, just standing where God is telling us to stand, there was a change that night just in that room. And I think that change has continued, not ‑‑ I’m not saying, I’m not claiming anything. It just is, I think is God’s will. It’s changed. People are standing together. And the media now is confused because they’re like, “Well, evangelicals, I thought you thought they were all dogs, the Mormons, and we should have them tagged, put down to sleep.”
DAVID BARTON: Yeah, this is a lot like the Whitefield stuff that was going on before the American Revolution.
GLENN: Yes.
DAVID BARTON: Where the groups that were not supposed to be working together were working together. And they had common visions, common goals, they were out to save the country and suddenly all the barriers for which they had killed each other in previous he ‑‑ and I mean literally killed each other ‑‑
GLENN: Killed each other.
DAVID BARTON: ‑‑ previous years, suddenly they are now side by side, shoulder to shoulder in the trenches and they finally recognize the enemy’s a whole lot bigger than shooting at each other. And I think that’s where we are right now.
GLENN: Right. The king didn’t understand it then and I don’t think the king understands it today.
DAVID BARTON: I agree. I agree. And he underestimated it as well.
GLENN: Big time.
DAVID BARTON: He’s used to dealing with all these separate constituencies who don’t like each other and always fighting and bickering and suddenly when they all get pulled together, it doesn’t take ‑‑ it doesn’t take a majority to do that. It takes a dedicated minority working together. And I don’t know where the majority in this election I think will probably have the majority influence and folks will come our direction, but as far as folks working together, you have the similar folks working together in ways that again remind me of the first great awakening and literally the Second Great Awakening where the issue then was saving the country from the slavery culture and what was going with racism. So both revivals we’ve had in America were very dissimilar groups working toward common goals for the country and I think that’s where we are.
GLENN: I have to tell you, David, over the summer we’ve witnessed the Third Great Awakening.
DAVID BARTON: Yeah.
GLENN: ‑‑ at Cowboys Stadium. And I agree with you. I think it is absolutely happening and nobody in the media or in Washington will even understand what that even means, but it is gigantic. But I was standing on the stage with Freedom Works on Friday in a show that we’re going to air tonight at 8:00 on TheBlaze and I was giving a speech and it struck me about halfway through, the similarities of what is being done right now to the beginning of our country. We are repeating, and we’re at the very beginning of it, but we are repeating all of the steps that it took for us to be free in ‑‑ around the time of the Declaration of Independence, don’t you think?
DAVID BARTON: I agree. And I look ‑‑
GLENN: It’s starting to happen.
DAVID BARTON: And I look at the TEA Parties, I look at other even churches and it’s like the Committees of Correspondence. These guys talk to each other, and every one of them’s a local independent committee, nobody’s over them, but they all communicate, they all cooperate. And that’s unusual. I mean, I haven’t seen that in my lifetime where we have so many small groups. And the networking that’s occurring, I mean, that’s the same thing. I haven’t seen networking like this. We’ve always had, even on the social conservative side with evangelical side, there has to be some spokesman somewhere. There’s not a spokesman. There’s about 5,000 of them. And so the networking that’s out there, the Committees of Correspondence concept, what we’re doing with transmitting information through social media, et cetera, I was just talking to some of the guys on the ground this morning, six of the battleground states and they say hands down that on our side, social conservatives and TEA Party folks, our technology’s so much better than what Obama has. The media keeps saying how great all you this technology is. What we’ve been able to do with microtargeting, what we’ve been able to do with voter registration and turnout, it is so much more sophisticated than what they are doing on their side. And that’s exactly what was going on in the First and Second Great Awakenings. Everybody underestimated how organized and how dedicated small groups could be.
GLENN: Mmm‑hmmm.
DAVID BARTON: And that’s exactly where we are now.
GLENN: Mmm‑hmmm. So what is your prediction?
DAVID BARTON: I predict that tomorrow night it not going to go nearly as long as everybody thinks it will. I don’t think it’s going to be nearly as tight. We’ll certainly know within the first couple of hours when we ‑‑
GLENN: Just give me an electoral college number for Romney. You know, ballpark it.
DAVID BARTON: You know, 270 to win, and I think it’s easy over that. I think it could be 320, 330. I just you ‑‑
GLENN: I agree.
DAVID BARTON: I think it could be ‑‑ I think Barone could be right on this thing. And I’m in that category.
GLENN: Barone, I said what Barone said, I mean, two weeks ago and you’re not quoting me. Why are you quoting Barone?
DAVID BARTON: (Laughing.)
GLENN: Now if he’s wrong, quote him.
STU: Yeah, it was Michael Barone then. It was his fault.
GLENN: Yeah, if he’s right, it’s me. I’m just sayin’.
DAVID BARTON: That’s right.
GLENN: All right, David, we’ll see you ‑‑ are you going to be on tonight?
DAVID BARTON: Yes, sir.
GLENN: Are you in town? Where are you?
DAVID BARTON: Yes, sir, I’m with you tonight and you’re stuck with me tomorrow night.
GLENN: Okay. Good. I’m glad to have ya. And bring some of the information on the organizing technology for tomorrow night’s show, will you?
DAVID BARTON: I will have it.
GLENN: Thanks a lot.
DAVID BARTON: Absolutely. See you, bro.
GLENN: David has quite a network that we’ll be getting information that the other networks won’t have tomorrow.