I noticed that the Discovery Channel is sponsoring its own "greatest American contest" (http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/greatestamerican/top100/top100.html). Who cares who wins?  A valid question, and there's little chance for a victory by someone with Douglas' credentials in a popularity contest that includes sports stars, war heroes, actors, and conservative politicians.  However, it would help to remember that evangelical Christians can and have embraced liberalism, even socialism.

Americans have largely forgotten that evangelicals in the heartland (Douglas lived in the prairie province of Saskatchewan) used to support policies that protected ordinary farmers and laborers from the rapacity of powerful corporations.  As Thomas Frank has pointed out, the liberal economic populism that predominated from the late 1800s through the New Deal has been overtaken by a reactionary populism that discourages its followers from looking at economic injustice.  

U.S. history has plenty of examples of people like Douglas (even though none of them achieved his policy agenda).  One example is Henry Wallace, a devout Protestant and leading voice on the left during the New Deal and the early days of Cold War who served FDR as secretary of agriculture and vice president and who ran for president in 1948 as an independent.  Another example is William Jennings Bryan, the Nebraska advocate of government intervention on behalf of small farmers and workers, three-times nominated (and three times defeated) Democratic nominee for president, and who as Woodrow Wilson's secretary of state resigned rather than lead the country into World War I.  

The current crop of Christian conservatives would do well to remember that their predecessors include fierce foes of big business and militarism like Bryan, who, if they know him at all, look at him fondly for his role as the lawyer AGAINST evolution in the Scopes Monkey Trial.  

If Wallace (tarnished by his perceived accommodation of the Soviets) or Bryan (lets hope his stand on evolution works against him)  have no chance of a revival as national heroes, there is one liberal icon who, while not a prairie populist, stands for things Americans love about their history, like winning World War II and ending the Great Depression. Franklin Delano
Roosevelt for greatest American.  

He's on the list for Discovery's competition, as are Rush Limbaugh, GW Bush, and Sam Walton.  Vote like it's 1932 all over again.