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Covenanter Plays Key Role in NH Primary
By Craig Pinley
NASHUA, NH (September 17, 2003) - Dale Kuehne may not be well known throughout
the Evangelical Covenant Church, but any candidate who wants to be
president of the United States knows who he is.
Kuehne, who serves as part-time pastor at Emmanuel Covenant Church in
Nashua, New Hampshire, is the founding director of the New Hampshire
Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College. The college plays a key
role in the New Hampshire primary, which historically has provided the
earliest high-profile opportunity for presidential candidates to make a
good impression on potential voters nationwide.
"The only reason the New Hampshire primary is powerful is because it's
first," Kuehne said. "But because we are first and because the media
covers it (the primary) so intensely, the candidates come to New
Hampshire consistently in the years leading up to the primary and
constantly in the year before. The reason Saint Anselm is so significant
is our location in the state - we're five miles from the only airport
and television station in the state. And 90 percent of New Hampshire's
population lives within 40 minutes of the campus.
"As a result, Saint Anselm is an excellent place to study the New
Hampshire primary, an excellent place for the study of New Hampshire
politics and a great place to try and re-engage young people as
citizens," Kuehne continued. "George W. Bush visited the campus three
times during his last presidential campaign. Mary McGrory of the
Washington Post says that we at Saint Anselm have 'a box seat on
America's most riveting political theater.' We live in a place where
presidential candidates actually have to talk to human beings one on one."
Kuehne has always enjoyed politics and believes deeply in the importance
of developing the public dimension of our faith. Politics is just one
manifestation of this. Earlier in his life, he wondered if that could
ever happen. "I didn't sense that the church was really that interested
in public life," he said. "There were times when I despaired that the
church would ever be faithful to its mission to bring Christ to the
world. I hadn't despaired of Christ, just in the church as an institution."
After Kuehne began his college education at Wheaton College (near
Chicago), he met a
professor, Mark Amstutz, who introduced him to Christian political
thought. Kuehne later
transferred to the University of Minnesota and met a Quaker professor,
Mulford Sibley, whose perspective was completely different from that of
Amstutz, although his passion was just as fervent. Kuehne says both
Amstutz and Sibley helped him connect Christianity and the church with
some of his political and spiritual interests, giving him hope he could
integrate the two as he continued his education.
"I wanted to get a PhD and teach Christianity and politics and I sought
an education that would help me do both," Kuehne said. "So I went to
Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (in Massachusetts) to get a master's
degree in church history. Then I went to
Georgetown University (in Washington, D.C.) and got a doctorate in
government and wrote my dissertation on sermons on politics during the
Revolutionary War."
While Kuehne, his wife Rachel, and their three children were in
Washington D.C., they attended Washington Community Fellowship, a
Mennonite congregation. The church's involvement with its neighborhood
further convinced Kuehne that the church could impact its world. "It was
the best church I ever attended," he said. "It was a faithful worshiping
community that had a passion to bring the gospel to bear on every aspect of
life, including the political realm. It showed me what the church could be."
After becoming a professor of politics at William Jewell College near
Kansas City, Kuehne reconnected with the Covenant as he and his family
attended Community Covenant Church in Kearney, Missouri. When the
full-time pastor left a year later, Kuehne became a licensed interim
pastor. And when Kuehne accepted a teaching position at St. Anselm in
the fall of 1994, he and his family began attending Bethany Covenant
Church in nearby Bedford. Kuehne served Bethany as the mission pastor
and eventually became an ordained Covenant pastor.
Kuehne said that he knew St. Anselm had the potential to be a vibrant
and influential
political hub as he watched all of the key presidential candidates
visiting the school long
before the November 1996 presidential elections occurred. He said that
one noted candidate, Richard Gephart, even asked to teach a class at the
school in 1995.
Once St. Anselm realized the political niche it inhabited, Kuehne, along
with department colleague Paul Manuel, worked with the president of the
school, Fr. Jonathan DeFelice, to help establish the New Hampshire
Institute of Politics. The school named Kuehne founding director in
January of 1999 and provided a $225,000 loan to give Kuehne time to
raise enough money to make the institute a self-supporting college
entity. Thanks
to the generosity of many donors and the support of U.S. Sen. Judd
Gregg, the dream of the institute has been realized. Almost $14 million
has been raised over the last four years
and the institute now inhabits a 20,000-square-foot state-of-the-art
facility complete with classrooms, research centers and an auditorium
and television studio.
Presidential candidates for 2004 have been visiting the school all year.
Al Sharpton visited St. Anselm in January and drew the attention of
national media at a press conference attended by 400 individuals.
Fifteen St. Anselm students visited with Sharpton over lunch. In
February, Sens. Joseph Lieberman and John Edwards came to the
school. Howard Dean is coming later this month and Lieberman will be
back in October. And that is just the beginning.
Does Kuehne have any predictions on who will be elected president in
2004? So far, he's not saying, but he believes the presidential race
will be different than in previous elections because more presidential
primaries are occurring earlier than ever before.
"We will know who the two major party candidates for president are by
mid-February of 2004 . . . and I think the reason is the growing
influence of money on the process," he said. In 1976, Jimmy Carter was
an obscure candidate until he won the New Hampshire primary. The
caucuses for most of the other states were spread out into June. Because of
that, after he left New Hampshire he could go campaign more personally
in other states and raise money as he went along.
"Next year, even if you win New Hampshire, virtually all of the other
primaries will be held in the following six to eight weeks," Kuehne
observed. "So the only chance any candidate has is to raise a ton of
money before the first votes are cast in Iowa and New Hampshire, because
if you win and you have no money, you will not have time to raise and
build an organization after New Hampshire. Almost everything will need
to be in place beforehand. This doesn't mean winning New Hampshire will
be less important, but that having money will be even more important
following New Hampshire."
Years ago, Kuehne didn't know if he would be able to integrate his
commitment to Christ and his calling to be salt and light in the world.
He has been pleasantly surprised. "God is faithful," he said. "Between
pastoring Emmanuel Covenant Church and teaching and working at the New
Hampshire Institute of Politics, God has shown me his great faithfulness
and mercy and grace. And in regard to my attitude toward the church, it has
come full circle.
"Every day in politics I am confronted with the temporary and the
imperfect, Kuehne continued. "There is no hope for the world outside of
Jesus Christ and his body on earth - the church. Politics leaves me
weary. Pastoring Emmanuel is exhilarating. As much as I yearn to do
justice in the world, I yearn even more to work with my brothers and
sisters at Emmanuel to bring something to the world that is permanent
and lasting and righteous and awesome and holy and beautiful - Jesus
Christ."
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