March 2008 Archives

In a sign of the intensifying battle for Catholic voters between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, particularly ahead of next month’s Pennsylvania primary, both candidates have brought Catholic outreach coordinators aboard their campaigns, God-o-Meter has learned.

Just last week, Obama’s campaign hired Mark Linton, a legislative aide working on poverty and other social policy issues in Obama’s Senate office, as its National Catholic Outreach Coordinator. Linton, who had previously worked for Catholic Relief Services, is currently focused almost exclusively on Pennsylvania, where roughly one in three Democratic voters are expected to be Catholic.

“Mark’s job is to help get Senator Obama’s message on health care, the war, and helping American families out to the Catholic grassroots,” said Joshua DuBois, Obama’s National Director of Religious Affairs, in an interview Monday, describing Linton’s role. “Obama is just beginning to introduce himself to Catholics around the country.”

The Obama campaign would not grant a request to interview Linton, saying he’s not an official spokesperson.

The Clinton camp, meanwhile, has brought aboard Eric McFadden, the former field director for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a progressive Washington-based Catholic group founded after the 2004 election to combat conservative Catholic advocacy organizations.

McFadden, based in Ohio, joined the Clinton campaign in advance of the Buckeye State primary earlier this month, say sources close to the campaign. Clinton won the make-or-break primary decisively, largely by winning Catholics by 63-percent to 36-percent over Obama, according to exit polls.

Such a strong Catholic offensive during the primary season is new for Democratic presidential candidates. While McFadden worked to organize Catholics on John Kerry’s behalf in 2004, for example, he was never official incorporated into the campaign and wound up frustrated with Kerry’s anemic religious outreach program, according to news accounts from the time.

The Clinton campaign did not respond to requests for an interview with McFadden, but McFadden confirmed that he was with the campaign in a brief phone interview last week.

After her dramatic win among Ohio Catholics, Hillary Clinton is seen to have an advantage among Catholics in Pennsylvania, who are often described as the quintessential Reagan Democrats—working class and culturally conservative. A Gallup poll survey last week showed that Democratic Catholics preferred Clinton to Obama by 56-percent to 37-percent.

But the Obama campaign’s DuBois notes that Obama won the Catholic vote in a few primary states, including Virginia and Louisiana, though by modest margins. Much of Linton’s time in Pennsylvania will be spent organizing forums with Catholic opinion shapers. The campaign wants to host more than the handful of Catholic forums it held in Ohio, where the events featured Catholic Obama surrogates Tim Roemer, a pro-life former Congressman, and Vicki Kennedy, wife of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy.

“As people get to know Obama more and what he stands for as a former faith-based community organizer and his policies of making sure everybody has health insurance and making sure we reach a responsible end to the war in Iraq, more and more Catholics will come on board,” said DuBois.

“What concerns Catholics is not just the waging of war, but the integrity to make the right decision at the beginning, when it was tough to do,” he continued. “[That’s] when Obama stood up at great personal and political risk and opposed the war; that’s in line with Catholic values and it resonates with Catholic voters.”

DuBois noted that as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama’s work was funded partly by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a project of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Obama campaign has been buoyed by a string of recent endorsements from high profile Catholics, including Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.—whose father was famously denied a speaking slot at the 1992 Democratic convention because of his pro-life views—and Douglas Kmiec, a conservative legal scholar and legal counsel to Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Here's what James Dobson said about John McCain early last month:

Should Sen. McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime. I certainly can't vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life.

Now, Dobson's changing his tune. Focus on the Family action just sent a "special alert" to its backers, with a subject line that retracts Dobson's vow to stay home come Election Day: "Dr. Dobson: 'I Will Certainly Vote'." Here's what the alert says:

Dr. James Dobson told Sean Hannity on Sunday night he is going to vote in the November election – ending weeks of speculation that he would sit on the sidelines over his policy disagreements with the two major parties’ candidates for the White House.

Weeks of speculation that he would sit on the sidelines? That wasn't speculation. That's what Dobson said. The special alert continues:

On Hannity’s America on the Fox News Channel, Dr. Dobson told his longtime friend he definitely plans to cast a ballot this year.

“Let me just say that I will certainly vote, Sean,” he said. “I think we have a God-given responsibility to vote, and there are all of the candidates and the issues down the ballot that we have an obligation to weigh in on and let our voices be heard.”

Dr. Dobson, speaking as a private citizen and not as a representative of Focus on the Family, as he always does when discussing political candidates, added that he “has problems” with all three major presidential contenders, especially the Democrats.

As for John McCain, Dr. Dobson responded with a question of his own when Hannity said he had received assurances from the Arizona senator that he would keep the pro-life and pro-marriage planks in the GOP’s party platform.

“Did he give you a commitment about embryonic stem-cell research?” Dr. Dobson asked.
“We did not get that,” Hannity replied.

“But that's an important one for me,” Dr. Dobson explained. “And you can't really call yourself pro-life if you're in favor of killing those babies.”

Dr. Dobson said he would not elaborate on how he would vote in November. He has said that he and his wife, Shirley, chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, have been and will continue to pray that God’s will be reflected in the outcome of the election.

This is an invitation from Dobson to John McCain to win his backing (perhaps unenthusiastic backing, but hey, it's better than outright opposition) by rescinding his support for expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. From its chats with various leading lights of the Christian Right, God-o-Meter knows the embryonic stem cell issue has emerged as the biggest sticking point between the movement and McCain. How much of this is because the Christian Right feels that last year's scientific breakthrough allowing skin cells to be reprogrammed to mimic embryonic stem cells gives their ailing anti-embryonic stem cell research cause new life? Quite a bit.

It's that breakthrough that could also give McCain the political wiggle room to change his tune on embryonic stem cell research without being tarred a bald-faced flip flopper. But the Christian Right has been pressing McCain to dial back is support for more federally-funded embryonic stem cell research for months, and McCain hasn't blinked. Let's see if that changes this week.

There's been some squawking from the chattering classes about the challenge this presents Obama, but God-o-Meter is shocked that so few Americans hold the mistaken belief that Obama is Muslim, given the virulence of the false rumor campaign against him. Consider that other recent polls have shown that:

28-percent of Americans think "Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." 14-percent are unsure.

26-percent of Americans believe that the American government "knew the 9/11 attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military, and economic motives."

23-percent of Americans say they have actually seen a ghost or believe they have been in one's presence.

Take heart, Obama.

In the current issue of The New Republic, Dayo Olopade makes a convincing case that Rev. Jeremiah Wright won't be keeping a low-profile all the way through Election Day for a pretty simple reason: he's too self-absorbed to go so long without kicking up controversy. Of course, last week's string of recent string of cancelled Wright speaking engagements cast some doubt on this theory. But here's Olopade's convincing nut graphs:

[W]hy didn't Obama push him away long ago?

Actually, he did--sort of. Recall what happened in early 2007. Initially, Obama had invited Wright to deliver the benediction at the event where he would formally launch his candidacy; but, at the last minute, Obama rescinded the invitation. In doing so, it seems likely that Obama understood his political problem and was trying to send his pastor-mentor a polite but firm message: Stay away from the spotlight and, please, for the love of God, try not to cause any controversy, lest you sink my chances of winning.

Most people would have taken the hint. But not Jeremiah Wright. Less than a month later, he was on Fox News bickering with Sean Hannity about "black liberation theology" and admonishing the famously obnoxious TV host, "Let me suggest that you do some reading before you come and talk to me about my field. " Five days later, he was in The New York Times complaining about Obama's decision to block him from speaking and volunteering that, "[w]hen his enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli [to visit Muammar Qaddafi] with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell." And he wasn't done yet. Days after that, Wright uncorked an open letter to the Times that accused reporter Jodi Kantor of misrepresenting her interview with him. The screed rambled for more than a thousand words before culminating in this: "There is no repentance on the part of The New York Times. There is no integrity when it comes to The Times. You should do well with that paper, Jodi. You looked me straight in my face and told me a lie!"

Why wouldn't Wright take the hint that Obama seemed to be offering and quietly slink into the background, at least until November 2008? Two months ago (long before his most inflammatory sermons had surfaced), I visited Wright's church on a Sunday morning. And what I witnessed that day makes the answer quite clear.

To put it mildly, Jeremiah Wright is a man who is comfortable in the spotlight....

Now, the angry letter to the Times that Wright fired off last year is receiving a fresh round of coverage, with Mark Halperin's The Page blog dusting off the letter (read it here) and getting a response from the New York Times, which stands by its original story about tensions between Wright and Obama.

Sure, Wright's ego may have him back in the spotlight before November 4. Until then, it seems that the news media is happy to do the work for him.

Faithful God-o-Meter reader Paul Shiras writes about the Wright/Obama controversy:

Can we give this a rest? When I challenged my pastor over things he said from the pulpit, I was sanctioned by the church board. Let's talk about the issues that face the nation and stop dwelling on the rantings of a man no longer on the stage.

God-o-Meter would like to challenge Shiras's let's-just-talk-about-the-issues rationale for downplaying the Wright flap. The controversy died down last week, of course, but GOM feels that dismissing the flap as a distraction from "real issues" let's the Democrats unfairly have it both ways on religion--to use it when it suits them and to brush it aside when it doesn't.

If the party and its presidential candidates are going to wage a vigorous campaign to win back religious voters, largely by spotlighting their own personal faith, including the importance of spiritual mentors like Wright, they should have to answer tough questions about their religious resumes, too. Otherwise, White House hopefuls are permitted to exploit religious purely for their own political purposes while avoiding explaining the implications of their religious faith on the nation, should they land in the White House. Isn't that what Republican candidates--Huckabee and Romney come to mind--have been doing for years?