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John McCain
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Thursday July 17, 2008
McCain's Evangelical Problem: It's All About Turnout
Spiritual Politics' Mark Silk weighs in on the exchange between God-o-Meter and John Schmalzbauer on whether the Democrats ought to throw in the towel if Obama can't make some evangelical inroads this fall:
As with any dependable voting bloc, the issue is less how its vote breaks down than what the turnout is--i.e. mobilization. The importance of white evangelicals in recent elections, especially where they are thick on the ground, is that they have been highly mobilized via church-based organizing. In 2002, when the Republicans took over control of the Georgia statehouse, frequent-attending white evangelicals turned out at higher rates across the South than they did in the rest of the country. In Ohio in 2004, they were definitely on the march. The reason the GOP has reason to be concerned about them this year, then, is that between their lukewarmness toward McCain and their sense that Obama may be kind of OK, they'll stay at home.
Filed Under: evangelicals, John McCain, John Schmalzbauer, Mark Silk, Spiritual Politics, turnout
posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 1:37pm Permalink 
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About God-o-Meter
The God-o-Meter® (pronounced Gah-DOM-meter) scientifically measures factors such as rate of God-talk, effectiveness—saying God wants a capital gains tax cut doesn't guarantee a high rating—and other top-secret criteria (Actually, the adjustment criteria are here). Click a candidate's head to get his or her latest God-o-Meter reading and blog post. And check back often. With so much happening on the campaign trail, God-o-Meter is constantly recalibrating!
God-o-Meter® blogger Dan Gilgoff is Beliefnet's Politics Editor. A former political correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, he is author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War.
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Comments
Mark Silk's observations about the lukewarm nature of evangelical support for McCain are right on. Recall that James Dobson followed his critique of Obama's speech with criticism of McCain.
Another warning sign for McCain. Though nobody expects him to win California, the latest Field poll shows McCain winning only 48 percent of evangelicals to Obama's 35 percent. I'm not sure how the Field people operationalize evangelicalism, but this poll is more evidence for the diversity of evangelical political leanings. California is not Alabama.
Read more about it here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/15/MN2T11PHGD.DTL&tsp=1
Posted by: John Schmalzbauer | July 17, 2008 3:49 PM
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