God-o-Meter is struck by the number of faith-based storylines the news media appear to have gotten dead wrong this year.
One was the line that Obama was poised to make big gains among white votes, especially evangelicals, who were undergoing a generational shift in their political thinking and reexamining their longstanding allegiance to the GOP. Obama made modest improvements among white evangelicals compared to John Kerry in 2004, but it was nothing historic; white evangelicals backed McCain yesterday by 74-percent.
Another was that evangelical turnout would be dampened by their ambivalence over John McCain and disillusionment with the GOP. Didn’t happen, In fact, white evangelical turnout represented a significantly bigger share of the vote in states like Ohio and Indiana than in 2004.
And now this: remember that storyline about Obama struggling to win Jewish voters, given his support for negotiating with Iran, his past support for the Palestinian cause, the false Muslim rumor campaign, the fact that he wasn’t Hillary Clinton, etc.? Well, he got 82-percent of those votes, compared to 75-percent for Kerry. It turns out the one white religious constituency that Obama made serious inroads in is the one that the news media said he was struggling for.
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posted November 6, 2008 at 11:13 am
Dan, what about the fact that evangelicals in Ohio and Indiana broke toward Obama more sharply than they did white evangelicals nationwide? That suggests not a reticence over McCain, but enthusiasm for Obama in some evangelical quarters. Same thing in North Carolina, where they went from 36 percent of voters to 42 percent and Obama gained 8 points.
posted November 10, 2008 at 11:20 pm
With all due respect, the “faith storyline” that “the media” (um, that includes you, Dan, AND God-o-rama) got wrong was that there should even have been faith storylines, ‘specially considering there isn’t supposed to BE a religious test to hold public office in America.
The entire premise of this blog cr@ps on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and soi-disant “freedom of religion”.