Dan Gilgoff: July 2008 Archives

Two pieces today combat this week's Washington Times piece about the threat of Mitt Romney giving evangelicals more agita should John McCain draft him as a running mate. The first, a Politico story headlined "Romney could lift McCain in West" points out that Romney's evangelical problem matters a lot less out West:

He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, considered a cult by some evangelical Christians and Southern Baptists. Despite his central-casting good looks, he often comes across as aloof. And he and McCain taunted each other in the primaries, which could be exploited by Democrats.

But in the West, those problems are molehills, not mountains. Romney raised millions of dollars in the region -- not known as a fundraising hot spot -- and Arizona, Colorado and Nevada have large Mormon populations. In GOP strongholds such as Utah and Idaho, many LDS members are expected to help in get-out-the-vote efforts in surrounding states....

Even Focus on the Family leader James Dobson -- who has softened his stance on McCain, a candidate he had said he would never vote for -- doesn't think Romney would be a bad VP choice.

"Dr. Dobson liked his speech about faith very much," said spokesman Gary Schneeberger, referring to Romney's December address, where he spoke about the importance of religion in American society but that it should be separate from public responsibilities. "He wants a pro-life running mate, and Romney qualifies for that."

The second plug for Romney comes from HorseRaceBlogger Jay Cost, who tackles the "Romney will alienate evangelicals" charge:

Maybe, but my feeling is that evangelical voters are going to vote. Again, turnout will be high if the election is close. So if they vote, who will they vote for? Barack Obama? Bob Barr? Ralph Nader? No, no, and no. Evangelicals are usually Republicans, which means we should expect them to vote Republican. Plus, Obama would never touch the "Mormon issue," not even with a ten-foot poll. That will minimize its salience.

Both lines of argument have merit. But they ignore a crucial fact of the modern Republican grassroots machine: it's made up largely of evangelical voters. It's no secret that those activists are underwhelmed by John McCain. But would they work to promote his candidacy if Mike Huckabee were his running mate? Probably. If Tim Pawlenty were his running mate? Probably. Bobby Jindal? Probably--and conservative Catholic activists would get on board, too.

But Mitt Romney? Sure, most evangelicals would vote for him. But a lot fewer would get out to knock on doors and talk him up at the Sunday church picnic. In a year when Democrats are much more enthusiastic about Barack Obama than Republicans are about McCain, that's a pretty big disadvantage from which to operate, and one that McCain could avoid with a handful of other picks.

The Charlie Rose Show just posted video of its interview yesterday with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who's on Obama's very short list of possible running mates. Watch it, particularly from the 15 to 30-minute marks, and you'll see that a big reason Obama's considering him is his fluency in discussing how his faith motivates his politics, including his transformational year as a missionary:

Is there another Democrat on the national stage besides Obama himself who speaks so openly about faith's role in his her or her political formation? Some coverage of the Kaine/Rose interview homes in on his support for a handful of curbs on abortion rights. It's a major factor in selecting Kaine--both for the voters it could attract and upset--but God-o-Meter thinks Kaine's manner of talking about his faith is just as important to Obama's political calculus.

Yes, some Democrats believe the way to close the God gap with the GOP is to moderate the party's positions on divisive cultural issues like abortion. But many more believe that Democrats have lost values voters because of their rhetoric and public attitude toward religion, not their policy positions. Kaine checks both boxes.

A Quinnipiac poll out today shows that the presidential race is surprisingly tight in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, given the unpopularity of President and lingering anti-Republican sentiment. One of Obama's biggest vulnerabilities: white Catholics. These are many of the same voters who kept Hillary Clinton going for so long during the Democratic primaries.

In both Florida and Ohio, Obama's losing white Catholics to McCain by 52-percent to 40-percent. That's not an insignificant gap. (In Pennsylvania, white Catholics are evenly split between the Democratic and Republican candidates.) It's not as dramatic as the gap in 2004, when John Kerry lost white Ohio Catholics (one in four Buckeye State voters) to President Bush 59-41 and lost Florida Catholics 59-41. But the difference from 2004 says more about Catholic uncertainty about John McCain than any increase in Catholic support for Obama.

That means Obama has an opening. But also that he hasn't seized it yet. For all the attention lavished on evangelical voters, Catholics are the swing voters who could decide the election with how they cast their ballots. Evangelicals, who vote overwhelmingly Republican, are more likely to decide the election by whether they go to the polls or stay home on Election Day.

David Brody has the scoop:

The Brody File has learned that the Obama campaign met with over 30 House members and senior staff this morning to strategize on Obama's faith outreach strategy this fall.

A meeting participant tells The Brody File it was a "high level strategy session" that focused on how to stress Barack Obama's family values and how to respond to faith based attacks from his religious conservative critics on the right. The off-the-record briefing was led by Obama's religious outreach team and when the meeting was over, House members and senior staff in the room agreed to host values forums in their district and talk publicly about Obama's family values in their surrogate work. The meeting focused quite a bit on Catholic outreach. According to one member in the room, the mood was very positive and upbeat.

Evangelicals were famously divided ruing this year's Republican primaries--the New York Times dubbed it an "evangelical crackup--but the most viscous divisions were between those supporting Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. Huck's evangelical forces saw Romney as the ultimately opportunist, converting to the social conservative cause only when he perceived that doing so would help cut a path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Romney's evangelical backers--there were a good number of them, particularly in elite circles--thought Huckabee was playing to the basest tendencies of the evangelical movement, campaigning to be a "pastor-in-chief" and cynically playing the Mormon card. (Remember Huck's devil remark?)

With both men reportedly in the running to be John McCain's vice presidential pick, the divisions between evangelicals for Huck and evangelicals for Mitt have resurfaced. A prominent evangelical Huckabee emailed GOM today with this Townhall post about persistent evangelical suspicions of Romney, with the title line "Huck Forces still attacking Mitt."

Romney's defenders--who, again, tend to the populate the elite conservative ranks--dismiss reports of evangelical antipathy toward Romney as the dirty work of Huck's henchmen. Townhall is a good example. AllahPundit, meanwhile, takes the evangelical opposition to Romney to be more genuine.

Such sentiment makes the ecumenical God-o-Meter wince, but it nonetheless appears to be real. A Pew poll released last December reported as much:

Furthermore, the group of Americans most likely to say they value religiosity in a president - white evangelical Protestants - is also the group most apt to be bothered by [Romney's] religion. More than one-in-three evangelical Republicans (36%) expressed reservations about voting for a Mormon, a level of opposition much higher than that seen among the electorate overall.

McCain's advisors have to be taking this into consideration. But if they're counting more on independents than evangelicals anyway, Romney--the old, socially liberal Romney--doesn't look like such a liability.

That's what the influential conservative Catholic group Fidelis says in a press release it put out, responding to news today that Obama's short list for running mates is mostly Catholic. Here's Fidelis's reasoning (read the full press release): Catholic...

The American Prospect's Tapped blogger Sarah Posner takes God-o-Meter to task for a recent post analyzing John Hagee's vow never to endorse another presidential candidate--and the enthusiastic applause the lined garnered from a packed auditorium of evangelicals. GOM said this...

The Democrats succeeding in closing the gap among what Democratic National Committee pollster Cornell Belcher calls "values-first voters" from 30 points in 2004 to around 10 points in 2006. It was a major factor behind the Democrats' congressional takeover. True,...

From today's Washington Post: Kaine and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius are the only state leaders believed to be under serious consideration, sources close to Obama said. As in Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. As in serious consideration to be Obama's...

Newsmax says so, channeling National Review's Mark Hemingway from last week. Hemingway makes a pretty convincing case. It's deep in the '08 cycle. Obama's been trying like mad to reach white evangelicals and other religious constituencies for a year and...

In her column for USA Today's Monday religion slot, TIME mag editor/Democratic faith expert Amy Sullivan reveals the surprising history behind George W. Bush's White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. In arguing for the expansion of the program, Barack Obama...

Religion Writer blogger Andrea Useem has posted this curious photo of a Baptist church marquee in Lynchburg, Virginia, home of the Falwell dynasty. Apparently, some evangelicals are irked at the perception that Obama is emphasizing works at the expense of...

Much ink has been spilled and airtime filled by Barack Obama's supposed Jewish problem. But Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics points God-o-Meter to a new poll showing Obama ahead of John McCain among Israelis. He's tied among conservative Likud Party...

To quote Jim Wallis, God is Personal, but never private. That's especially true in politics. AP has the story of the Israeli paper that published Barack Obama's handscrawled note to God in the Western Wall....

They're finally here, just in time for Barack Obama's trip to Jerusalem....

At the annual A Night to Honor Israel banquet in Washington on Tuesday night, here's what spurned televangelist John Hagee told the assembled: What will I say when I'm asked to endorse another presidential candidate? Never Again! According to the...

John McCain rarely schedules meetings with high profile religious leaders, in stark contrast to George W. Bush--and Barack Obama. But after whacking Obama this afternoon for campaigning among foreigners in Berlin, McCain is trumpeting his one-on-one meeting tomorrow with a...

The Matthew 25 Network, a new faith-based political action committee started by John Kerry's 2004 faith outreach director, is preparing to launch its second pro-Barack Obama radio ad this week, the group's founder and director said on a conference call...

James Dobson's 180-degree turnabout on John McCain has God-o-Meter thinking: has the candidate who's famously inept on religious outreach seen the light and picked up the phone to call Colorado Springs? Dobson went a lot further than he needed to...