A new CBS poll has McCain winning among white evangelicals 58% to 24%. Mark Silk notes that if undecideds broke 50-50, Obama would end up with almost one third of the white evangelical vote, a hefty jump over Kerry’s 22%. True enough.
But there’s another way of looking at it: despite the months worth of outreach to evangelicals, the speeches, the Very Christian campaign literature, the interviews with Relevant and Christianity Today and Christian Broadcasting Network, the Newsweek cover story, etc — Obama is still not doing any better than Kerry did. (And Kerry did worse among evangelicals than any Democrat since Mike Dukakis).
Perhaps that’s just the nature of the moment. For some evangelicals, shifting from voting Republican to Democrat is a big deal. Maybe they need to pause for a few months in Undecided Land. But it’s clear that Obama has not come close to reeling in those fish. And I think it’s time for them to be asking whether their approach so far is sufficient.
Beliefnet
Advertisement
posted August 7, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I will support McCain no matter what. Obama’s outreach thus far has been creepy. What has he offered thus far but rhetoric and more money for faith-based initiatives where the rules for the grants would end up secularizing these charities which almost seems to be the whole point.
If I was Team Obama , I would head right on abortion and head left on gay rights. If he can’t offer anything on abortion or life issues then he’s no sort of “pragmatist”.
http://www.democratsforlife.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=45
posted August 7, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Hi Steve,
It’s not quite true that Obama’s doing no better than Kerry did. His 24 percent already exceeds the 21 percent of evangelicals that Kerry won, while McCain’s 58 percent is far short of the 78 percent that Bush won. The point to bear in mind is that evangelicals have become a very solid Republican voting bloc over the past decade; and so, unlike swing groups (e.g. white Catholics or Mainline Protestants), it takes a lot to move even a small fraction of them. Think how limited Bush’s success in picking up Jewish votes was between 2000 and 2004, despite the most pro-Israel stance ever taken by an American administration. So Obama’s got his work cut out for him. But all things considered–i.e. that he’s a black pro-choice Democrat appealing to a largely conservative, white, pro-life constituency, he’s not doing badly at all. And if he can manage to close the deal with half the undecideds, he’ll have accomplished all he needs to.
Cheers, Mark
posted August 8, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I really question the poll. I don’t think there sample is acurate. Plus there is no real good definition for an evangelical.
Besides Obama only needs about 1/4 of what was called the fundamentalists in the 80s to make a huge dent in McCain’s numbers.
One thing that bothers me though. Evangelicals are supposed to oppose adultery and false witness.
Why do you support McCain? He has done both.
Obama has exaggerated like many other politicians but he has yet to lie. I’m not going to list McCains fabrications but if you are interested there are a ton on youtube McCain v McCain some of which are only a few days old.
The adultery charge is because he started seeing Cindy before he divorced his first wife. The reasons for the divorce should appaul any evangelical.
posted August 8, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Are evangelists Christians? If they are Christians, are they praying to God for answers, or did they choose Mccain because he is white.
posted August 8, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Obama may be wasting more than time and money trying to get Evangelicals. There is a much larger segment of the voting public up for grabs that would vote for McCain on economic grounds, could consider Obama, but absolutely despises Evangelicals. By trying to appeal to Evangelicals, Obama is losing that economic group of social moderates and that is where he should be spending his efforts.