Plano Kimberly
 | |
| Era | The Nineties |
|---|---|
| Age | 30-45 |
| Home | Plano, TX |
| Demographic | suburban white, evangelical, mother |
| Lean | Strong Republican |
| Race | white |
| Successor | Megachurch Heather |
A mother in the Dallas exurb of Plano whose non-denominational church supplies her friends and her children's activities, and shapes her politics as well. She is the first of an evangelical line continued by Megachurch Heather and Heartland Hank.
Who they stand for
White evangelicals were the largest religious bloc in the Republican coalition of the 1990s, and they had the best turnout of any group in the coalition. The Christian Coalition, founded by Pat Robertson in 1989 and run by Ralph Reed, distributed tens of millions of voter guides through church foyers before the 1994 election that gave Newt Gingrich the House. Kimberly weighs heaviest in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Indiana and Utah, and in booming exurbs such as Collin County, Texas, where new subdivisions filled churches faster than the old denominations could build them.
She represents the non-denominational strand of evangelicalism, which was the fastest-growing strand in that decade. Focus on the Family broadcast to her on the radio. Promise Keepers filled stadiums, including the National Mall in 1997. The Left Behind novels began appearing in 1995. The Lewinsky affair confirmed her view of Bill Clinton's character. George W. Bush, a Texan who named Christ as his favourite philosopher in a 1999 debate, appealed to her strongly. Megachurch Heather, the persona who follows her, belongs to a church that has become a political organisation. Kimberly's church has not yet become one.
Playing to them
She responds well to a president who speaks openly about faith and is not embarrassed by it. She wants a president who defends abstinence education and school prayer, leaves home-schooling families alone, and nominates judges who might revisit Roe v. Wade. She judges a president's personal decency to matter as much as policy. She does not forgive an expansion of abortion rights or unwanted sex education for her children. She also does not forgive any move toward gay marriage, or public contempt for believers. The economy rarely decides her vote, so a Democrat gains little with her by improving it. A Republican loses her support only by staying silent on the few subjects on which she will not move.
Winning her support tends to cost the support of Scarsdale Ellen, Castro Marty, Madison Steph and Dunwoody Amanda, because they hold opposing views on these religious and social questions. She tends to vote the same way as Cullman Eula, an older Southern Baptist voter with a similar outlook. A decency law like the one Congress passed in 1996 pleases her. The same law loses the support of Dot-Com Drew, who opposes government regulation of both personal behaviour and the internet.
Where they live
The five states where Plano Kimberly makes up the largest share of the electorate in the nineties:
- Nebraska
- Oklahoma
- Kansas
- Indiana
- Utah
Lineage
Plano Kimberly → Megachurch Heather → Heartland Hank
Evangelical strong Republicans, and what changes is whether they are trying to ban things or trying to protect themselves. Kimberly's church organises her whole social life, and its politics reach her without her noticing them as politics. Heather's church is a political organisation that passes marriage amendments and fights for Terri Schiavo. By 2019 the marriage fight is lost and abortion has gone to the Supreme Court, so Hank's evangelical politics are defensive: he wants to be left alone and respected, and he votes for Trump, who is nothing like a Christian, because Trump fights the people Hank believes are attacking him. The line is the evangelical vote, which does not depend on sex.