Could You Imagine?

The presidential campaign season is always a tough time for unbelievers. Both the major party candidates are falling all over themselves to out holy each other in pursuit of religious voters. Meanwhile, those of us in the 16% of voters who have no religious belief are left on the side of the road. So it's hard to imagine either political party giving an atheist/agnostic/heretic a place of influence. But it's happened before:

At the end of the 19th century, Robert Ingersoll was the most notorious heretic in the land, famous for his lectures debunking Christianity and the Bible. Yet Republicans — yes, the party of George W. Bush and the Rev. Pat Robertson — begged him to campaign in their behalf.

Campaign, he did. For more than two decades, Ingersoll barnstormed across the country drawing huge crowds, including one at an 1896 campaign appearance in Chicago for William McKinley that the Chicago Tribune claimed was 20,000 strong. Ingersoll was not merely a stage attraction but a confidant of Republican leaders — and a highly public one. In a masterful speech, he nominated Senator James G. Blaine for president at the party’s 1876 convention in Cincinnati and nearly won Blaine the nomination. When Blaine lost the contest to Rutherford B. Hayes, Ingersoll stumped vigorously for Hayes in turn.

Indeed. According to the Wikipedia entry on Ingersoll, audiences would pay the outrageous sum of $1 to hear him speak. I have to admit, I like his style:

Ingersoll’s lectures on religion — 'Some Mistakes of Moses' was a typical title — left the pious apoplectic. Evangelicals considered his influence so pernicious that they organized a day of prayer for his conversion. (He thanked them for their concern but remained happily heretical.)

Ha! Truly he was the Oolon Colluphid of his age.