John McCain Thursday May 15, 2008

Gay Marriage Decision Puts Heat on McCain

If John McCain wanted an opportunity to make common cause with the Christian Right, he's just been handed it: the California Supreme Court's decision to overturn the state's gay marriage ban. One of the Christian Right's biggest grievances against McCain is his steadfast refusal to get behind a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. This is a moment when McCain can reverse that opposition and make a plausible case that circumstance, rather than raw political calculus, forced his hand.

It wouldn't be the first time a Republican presidential candidate tried such a thing. President Bush used the Massachusetts Supreme Court's 2003 legalization of gay marriage as an opportunity to announce his support for the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment, now known as the Marriage Protection Amendment.

The amendment has gone nowhere in the years since then. But supporting it and roughly a dozen similar state-level constitutional amendments became the rallying cry for Christian conservatives who played a huge role in Bush's reelection. The GOP's evangelical grassroots have been unwilling to play a similar role for McCain for a litany of reasons. Will McCain seize this moment to try to change all that, reverting more to a Karl Rove style get-out-the-base strategy, or will he stick to running a much more centrist campaign by hedging on support for a constitutional amendment? This is a moment of truth.

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Filed Under: Christian Right, gay marriage, George W. Bush, John McCain

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Barack Obama Thursday May 15, 2008

In Israel, Bush Suggests Obama's an Appeaser

At a time when Barack Obama is working overtime to shore up Jewish support, President Bush takes a shot at him direct from the Isreali Knesset:

JERUSALEM (CNN) – In a particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Keeping up his own campaign to fight charges that he's insufficiently supportive of Israel and/or soft on Iran, Obama's communications director, Robert Gibbs, was on the phone with CNN to rebut Bush's remarks--live, on air--minutes after he uttered them today.

Update (9:46 AM): Obama just released this statement in response to Bush:

“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power - including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.”

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Israel, Jews

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John McCain Thursday May 15, 2008

Will Jews (Finally) Go Republican?

Will this be the year a Republican presidential candidate peels of serious Jewish support from Democrats? The Wall Street Journal makes a convincing case:

Many Republicans think so -- particularly with Barack Obama likely heading the Democratic ticket. That calculation has fueled an intense back-and-forth in recent days between the two parties over Sen. Obama's views on Israel. While both Sen. Obama and Republican John McCain have strong pro-Israel records, Sen. McCain is seizing on other issues, such as Sen. Obama's willingness to meet with Iran's president, to press his case with Jewish voters.

Republicans say Sen. McCain may be uniquely suited as their party's nominee to draw Jewish support. He has a reputation as a moderate on some domestic issues and backing from Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a prominent American-Jewish politician and former Democratic vice-presidential candidate. Obama backers say their candidate's positions on social issues are more in tune with Jewish voters' views.

Jewish votes could make a difference in a close election. Battleground states with relatively large Jewish populations include Florida, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

In past presidential elections, Jewish voters have gone overwhelmingly Democratic, according to exit polls, in part because they tend to be socially liberal. Ronald Reagan won 39% of the Jewish vote in 1980, the highest ever for a Republican. President Bush received 19% of the Jewish vote in 2000 and 24% in 2004.

A Gallup poll released last week showed Jewish voters favoring Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain by 61% to 32%.

In the Democratic primaries, Sen. Obama's record with Jewish voters has been mixed. Sen. Clinton carried the Jewish vote by margins of 20 points or more in six states, including her home state of New York. Sen. Obama, however, bested her among Jews in California, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Make no mistake, however. McCain's campaign to win over Jews will be an uphill climb. For all of Obama's potential challenges in the Jewish community, American Jews are some of the most dependably Democratic voters around:

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Jews, John McCain

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Barack Obama Thursday May 15, 2008

New Obama Values Ads in Kentucky

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that the Christian literature Barack Obama is distributing in Kentucky is just one part of a wider campaign aimed at marketing Obama as a Christian. A TV ad and two radio ads with that goal are now up:

Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who endorsed Obama on Sunday, narrated a new radio spot for Obama that highlights the Illinois Senator’s upbringing and values, including how Obama is “a strong Christian.”

Mongiardo said he felt compelled to make the ad after constituents contacted his office with what he called “misconceptions” about Obama.

“The negative calls have been talking about either the color of his skin or claims that he’s not a Christian,” Mongiardo said. “As I’ve listened to news casts of primaries across the country, it struck me that there is a segment of people who are not voting for Hillary Clinton but are voting against Barack Obama because of issues that don’t pertain to substance.”

U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler of Versailles recorded a similar radio ad for Obama.?”

You can listen to the radio ads here. God-o-Meter hasn't heard the P-word with regard to Obama's Christian marketing in the year and a half since his campaign began, but the Herald-Leader raises it:

....But too much of a concentration on religion could have a downside, [University of South Carolina political scientist Todd] Shaw, warned.

“There is some risk of the problem of pandering,” he said. “If you make too strong of a pitch, are you in fact tweaking your image to fit what people want to hear?”

What do you think? In his zeal to win over white religious voters in the remaining primary states, is Obama trying too hard to showcase his Christianity?

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Filed Under: ads, Barack Obama, Kentucky, literature

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Barack Obama Wednesday May 14, 2008

Obama's Churchy Kentucky Office

A dispatch on a Barack Obama Kentucky field office, courtesty of a Bluegrass State blogger who filed to the conservative Race 4 2008 blog:

I had just finished doing an undisclosed activity at Church and a friend asked me to check out Barack Obama. I couldn’t say no to my Lutheran friend.

So I drive up to the Obama office and I noticed a crudely spray-painted image of Barack Obama and a cross. So my friend and I walked in. A cross on the wall and a tall black man (a Professor of mine) greeted me. Behind him were two elderly ladies wearing crosses.

So they launched into their pitch about how Obama would care for the poor and the “least among these.”

I can’t attest to how Obama’s other 15 campaign offices in Kentucky are run. In this one the appeal to Evangelical voters is in overdrive.

God-o-Meter takes it that the Obama team is treating heavily religious Kentucky partly as a laboratory to test out Christian tactics for the general election, though it's already tried many of them out as far back as the Iowa caucuses and South Carolina primaries (can you remember that far back?).

The question is whether those tactics are actually working.

The exit polls from yesterday's West Virginia primary raise some serious doubts about that. Hillary Clinton won white Protestants 71-percent to 21-percent. She won white Catholics 57-percent to 40-percent. Time for a change in tactics?

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kentucky, literature, West Virginia

posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 6:15pm Permalink Email This Add to:

Barack Obama Wednesday May 14, 2008

Obama's Christian Lit. Where's the Outrage?

Hot Air's Ed Morrisey has posted a copy of Obama campaign literature from Kentucky (pictured below) that shows him in front of a beaming cross (it's literally covered with glowing bulbs) beneath the words “Faith," "Hope," and "Change."

Given the national controversy unleashed Mike Huckabee's alleged use of the cross in a Christmastime ad, Morrisey asks where the outrage is this time around:

Remember when Mike Huckabee offered an innocuous and pleasant Christmas ad, only to be accused of Christianism for supposedly having a floating cross in the background — which turned out to be a bookshelf? Well, apparently the cross has suddenly become cool for politicians. Barack Obama has made it the centerpiece of his appeal in Kentucky ....

Given the hysteria generated by Governor Huckabee’s Christmas greeting, we should see at least three of the ten plagues of Egypt accompanying such a “Christianist” advertisement for a presidential candidate.

Doesn't Morrisey have a point? Isn't there a double standard here? And might it extend well beyond this Obama literature? Republicans have long claimed that the media beats up on them as dangerously theocratic whenever they get even mildly churchy.

That's why Republican candidates, particularly at the national level, steer clear of church appearances, though they're a staple of Democratic campaigning. Even as George W. Bush rallied the Christian Right to tremendous effect in 2004, for instance, he never did campaign stops at churches. John Kerry, meanwhile, made numerous appearances in front of African American congregations.

The same thing appears to be happening again this cycle, with Obama frequently popping up in pulpits. Has John McCain made such appearances?

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Kentucky, literature

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Barack Obama Wednesday May 14, 2008

Wright's Toll in West Virginia

God-o-Meter wrote earlier today that Democratic congressional candidate Travis Childers's victory in a ruby red Mississippi district showed that the GOP's attempts to tie Democrats to the Wright/Obama brouhaha aren't working. But that's not to say that Obama himself is out of the woods when it comes to paying electoral costs for Wright. When asked if Obama shares the views of Rev. Wright in an exit poll yesterday, 51-percent of West Virginia Democrats said yes. Those voters broke for Hillary Clinton by 80-percent. Those who said Obama didn't share Wright's views split 51 to 44 percent for Clinton. That was one of the biggest gaps in the Mountain State's Democratic electorate.

Another yawning gap: 56-percent of West Virginia Democrats said Obama didn't share their values, twice the number who said the same thing about Hillary Clinton. For all Obama's faith talk, values is still his weakness.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Jeremiah Wright, polls, values, West Virginia

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Barack Obama Wednesday May 14, 2008

Wright Attack Fails in Mississippi

Mississippi Democratic congressional candidate Travis Childers, whose Republican opponent tried to lash him to Rev. Jeremiah Wright by way of Barack Obama's endorsement of Childers--a tenuous connection, to be sure--won his special election last night. It's the third straight special election House pickup for the Dems, and it came in a district that George W. Bush took by 25-points in 2004.

The Wright ad against Childers also invoked Obama's remarks about small town Americans clinging to guns and religion. So two faith-based lines of attack against Obama and the Democrats are failing in one of the nation's most culturally conservative districts. When's the last time that happened?

Here's the Childers/Wright ad:

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Mississippi, Travis Childers

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Hillary Clinton Tuesday May 13, 2008

No God Gap in West Virginia?

Here's what Hillary Clinton's faith outreach director just said about Clinton's victory tonight in Virginia via email:

There continues to be no emerging trend lines other than the one established at the beginning of the Democratic Primary: American faith and values voters connect with and support Senator Clinton. Tonight in West Virginia there is no difference.

But is it true?

Sure, Clinton's enjoyed a huge advantage among white religious voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. But Clinton's West Virginia landslide owed little to the God gap. Clinton won weekly and more-than-weekly churchgoers by 60-percent and 66-percent, respectively. Impressive. But she won similar proportions of infrequent churchgoers and those who sleep in on Sundays--who typically comprise Obama's base--claiming 70-percent and 63-percent of those voters, respectively.

No God gap there.

And Catholics, among whom Obama has been trounced by Clinton in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, broke for Clinton by a much smaller margin in West Virginia, by 52-percent to 45-percent.

Sure, Hillary shellacked Obama in West Virginia today. But religion may have played a smaller role than expected.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Catholics, Hillary Clinton, West Virginia

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John McCain Tuesday May 13, 2008

Bill Donohue's Take on Hagee's Apology

The case is closed on John Hagee, the Texas evangelist whose endorsement of John McCain set off a national controversy because of allegations that Hagee's books and sermons contain anti-Catholic rhetoric. Or at least it's closed according to Bill Donohue. The president of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Donohue led the campaign for McCain to distance himself from Hagee after the endorsement. After receiving a letter of apology and clarification from Hagee, Donohue today said the controversy is officially over. God-o-Meter caught up with Donohue by phone shortly after he made the announcement.

In your statement today, you said that Hagee’s apology was born of weeks of meetings with Catholic leaders. Do you have a window into what that process was like?

It’s been going on for weeks. A lot of Catholic activist friends of mine and some evangelicals have been powwowing with [Hagee] in Washington. They asked me to meet with Hagee and I said no several times. I’m not interested in meeting with him until I get what I want, a public statement and apology that’s complete and speaks specifically to these black legends about Catholics-Jewish relations, and the Holocaust in particular. And once that’s accomplished, I’ll be glad to meet with him. Now that’s going to happen on Thursday.

Quite frankly, I didn’t think that I would get something this complete. What I did not want to get was this “If you’ve been offended, I’m sorry.” I wanted something more specific. There’s no substitute for personal interaction, when you have people sitting down with you and explaining how you’ve been hurtful. Now we can bury this hatchet. It’s rather dramatic….

What really got me offended was the idea of “I’m the purist Christian on the block” when he’s talking to Jews—“I’m not out there persecuting the Jews like all these Catholics.” I’m sure we’ve seen the last of that.

Is Hagee acknowledging that he said anti-Catholic things, or only that he was insensitive toward Catholics and was careless about saying things that could be construed as anti-Catholic?

It’s very hard for me to deal with motive and intent. Is the person a real bigot? Unless the person admits to it, I don’t know. I’m not here to judge a pure heart.

What are you going to say to Hagee when you meet?

I want to sit down and talk to him. There’s not going to be any lectures. I got what I needed. I just want to shake his hand and thank him for doing this. I’m hoping now that people in our society who’ have looked on him as telling the truth about the Catholic church’s relations with Jews will hopefully reconsider….

There’s a residue of anti-Catholicism in part of the evangelical community and when you have the readiness of mind to believe the worst of any group, it becomes easier to swallow the moonshine, so to speak.

How far back does Hagee’s record of making anti-Catholic statements go?

I wrote to him in 1997 and he never wrote back. We had somebody from our chapter go to one of his events and he had some video that was casting aspersions (on Catholics) and he never answered me.

People like Tony Perkins and Richard Land and James Dobson, we obviously have theological differences, but there has always been comity and an amicable relationship. I get involved with them occasionally on policy things, like Justice Sunday, and Hagee is not only not invited, his name is not even mentioned. He’s kind of out of the loop.

Are you concerned that all of Hagee’s books and other writings about Catholics are still in circulation? Does he need to renounce all that?

If you were to come by my office, you would see hundreds upon hundreds of books by anti-Catholics—we have a huge library of them. You can’t do anything about his books.

The McCain campaign has caught a lot of grief over its Hagee endorsement. Has the campaign been in touch with you about resolving this issue?

The campaign has not been in touch with me, but intermediaries have been in touch back to the time when this happened.

I’m not a virgin. I understand where this is coming from. We’re in the middle of a presidential campaign. He took on enormous pressure because I went after him after he endorsed McCain. So there are all kinds of media now who had never heard of this guy and they’re not putting him in the spotlight. He got rapped all over the place. Could I have gotten this letter eleven years ago? No, he blew me off then.

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Filed Under: Bill Donohue, Catholic League, Catholics, John Hagee, John McCain

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