We’ve certainly had a healthy dose of religion in the 2008 presidential campaign. We’ve been treated to: Sarah Palin’s claiming that God had endorsed a natural gas pipeline; Barack Obama explaining Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright; Joe Biden getting into a theological argument with the Catholic Bishops; and John McCain praising the “most God-loving” parts of the country.
Despite all the noise, will the Faith Factor matter on election day? It certainly was significant in 2004. George W. Bush won in part because he generated significant turn out among evangelical Christians and moderate and conservative Catholics.
Here are the Top Ten Faith Factors to watch on Tuesday:
How Many Obamagelicals Are There? – It might seem farfetched that a socialist-terror-lovin’-pro-abortion candidate like Obama could win any evangelical Christians but he’s been courting them fervently since he began his presidential run. The key the 40% of evangelicals who call themselves “moderate” or “liberal.” Point of reference: John Kerry won 21% of white evangelicals, Gore 18%. Bill Clinton in 1996 won 26%
Will Palin Turn Out the “Religious Right”? — By picking Sarah Palin, John McCain gambled that she’d be able to rev up the evangelical “base.” Even as her popularity has fallen generally, evangelicals still love her (some even believing she was sent to battle the anti-Christ.) Assuming most conservative evangelicals vote for McCain, the second question is: how many will show up? Point of reference: white evangelicals accounted for 23% of the electorate in 2004.
Do Midwestern Evangelicals Split With Their Brethren? — Recent polls have showed Obama trailing badly among evangelicals in Florida and Colorado but doing quite well with them in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. If he succeeds there, he may have tapped into regional differences in style, theology and politics and launch a new era in faith-and-politics punditry, in which we no longer talk about “the evangelical vote” as a geographically uniform phenomenon.
Will Catholics Ignore Their Bishops? – The overall Catholic vote has gone with the popular vote winner every election since 1968. Catholic Bishops have been urging Catholic voters to vote for pro-life candidates but a majority of Catholic voters are now pro-choice so it remains to be seen what influence the church will have. (Obama is also winning with the 100-year-old-nuns bloc) Another factor in Obama’s favor: a higher percentage of the Catholic vote will be Latino this year. Last election, George W. Bush won the Catholic vote 52%-46%.
Can Obama Finally Bowl a Strike With Skeptical White Catholics? – During the primaries, Obama did poorly with white Catholics, often working class ethnics or their offspring. Remember his feeble attempt to curry favor through bowling? They tend to be culturally conservative and haven’t voted for a Democrat since 1996. On the other hand, they’re especially concerned about the economy this year, and Joe Biden has been trying to bond with them as a fellow “cultural Catholic.” Point of reference: In 2004, Bush won 56% of white Catholics, Kerry 43%
Will Whitebread Protestants Back the Black Guy? – Recent polls show Democrats gaining with a group that had leaned Republican for most of the past few decades – Mainline Protestants. It appears that while Sarah Palin energized evangelicals, she may have alienated some Mainliners. In 2004, they went for President George W. Bush 54%-46%.
Will Latino Protestants Vote Their Values or the Pocketbook? – One positive trend for Obama will likely be the shift of Latinos from the Republican side, where they resided in 2004, to the Democrats. The hidden religious story: most of the shift is driven by Latino Protestants. Many are evangelical and liked Bush’s Christian faith and his conservative positions on social issues (gay marriage, abortion) but have shifted to Obama because of the economy and concerns about immigration.
How Will the Kinda-Sorta Religious Vote? – In recent elections, the more religious you were, the more likely you were to vote Republican. This is known as the God Gap, which will still certainly exist. But watch for two things: among weekly churchoers how big is McCain’s margin? Bush won that group 61%-39%. Second, Kerry last time beat Bush among more occasional churchgoers 53%-47%. Will Obama increase that margin?
Will Jews Schlep to Republican Side? – This only really matters in Florida, and even there it doesn’t matter as much as you’d think (Jews made up 5% of the electorate there in 2004). Early polls had Obama struggling among Jews – in part because of fears about his former church’s connections to Louis Farrakhan — but more recently he’s caught up, possibly because Jews fear that Sarah Palin is an extreme evangelical. Or possibly the Sarah Silverman factor. Jews reportedly went about 75%-25% for Kerry.
Will the GOP Become the ROP? - Will Republicans become the Religiously Oriented Party? In 2004, white evangelicals made up 36% of Bush voters.
Will that go up or down? If it becomes an even more dominant force within the party, how will that shape either the way McCain governs if he wins or, if he loses, how the Republicans re-invent themselves?
Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal Online
Beliefnet
Advertisement
posted October 29, 2008 at 3:13 am
No matter what happens,I hope in the future,Republican will be more inclusive to all groups,not just catering to the conservative/right wing base of their party.
posted October 29, 2008 at 5:08 am
I see you all have not lost your fight.
Good! Because we have a lot to do. We (the American people) are going to have to take back control of our elected government and set it on the right path of service to us and the greater good of the world. Obama and the Democrats are our best hope of doing that. Tell your family, friends, and everyone you know to support them as best they can. Because the Neocon machine of voter fraud, voter cheating, voter buying, and voter manipulation is already hard at work to cheat us again.
Beginning back in 2000, and before 9/11, it was mostly Republican governors, Republican legislatures, and county-elected Republican officials who conspired with the corrupt Bush administration to raise college and university tuitions by the fastest and highest rate in American history. Some state tuitions went up by as much as a whopping 30% in one year. The reason the Bush administration did this was to force struggling working class kids into the military to pay for the sudden jump in price.
Bush ideology had plans to get us into all these immoral, foolish, and unnecessary wars from the start so that they could use them to seize and keep power. But, for their plan to work, they needed even more volunteer soldiers whose blood they could spill. (Remember Bush’s “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” theatrics.) The exploitation and lost lives of these finest Americans is despicable, disgusting, and criminal. And it makes me SICK, and ANGRY.
We will have to vote for Obama in overwhelming numbers to overcome the Bush-McCain fraud machine. Vote early if you can. Then help your fellow Americans cast their votes now and on through election day. Vote for Obama as though your life (and the lives of your loved ones) depends on it. Because truly, it does: we will not survive 4 more years of the “Let Them Eat Cake” leadership of Bush, McCain, and their corrupt Republican allies.
Just look at the mess we have already. We can fix it with your vote. And REMEMBER, no matter which of us may stumble, the rest of us must continue to surge forward for Obama and the Democrats, and for ourselves most of all. Our children and the world are counting on us.
It’s in our hands now. And I know we will get it done.
God bless all of you.
posted October 29, 2008 at 7:33 am
You know, when I listen to people cite Obama’s stance on abortion with chagrin and horror, I have to laugh a little inside.
How quickly they forget; for years and years John McCain opposed reversing Roe vs. Wade, too. You can still watch interviews from his 2000 presidential run in which he blatantly says as much.
Yet now it is 2008, and he knows that if he is to have a snowballs chance in you-know-where, he has to coddle Bush’s voter base. That means changing opinions. Fast. And he has.
At least on this issue, Obama is up-front about his beliefs.
And I’ll tell you why that should make us all happy, even if you are against abortion with every ounce of your being;
Bush also ran on an anti-abortion platform. So have countless other republican politicians, both federal and municipal. But from Mayor to President, what have any of them done about it after winning the election?
Consider: Bush had all the power in the world at one point. He had a Republican controlled Senate, House, and of course, the Presidency. Yet nowhere in that maelstrom of pure unadulterated power did ‘abortion’ come up. I believe he gave more lip-service to banning gay-marriage than the (as described by opponents) “ongoing genocide of millions of pre-born babies.”
When are people on the Right going to open their eyes and realize that the whole abortion-topic is only so much lip-service prior to an election? How many generations of Republican Presidents need to agree with you before Election Day, and ignore you afterwards, to get the message?
I don’t think any politician is completely trustworthy, but in this instance, the honest one and the flat-out liar is a little more obvious. Okay, a lot more.
posted October 29, 2008 at 11:30 am
I’d add one more:
Who will win the Culture War battle in California’s same-sex marriage initiative.
posted October 29, 2008 at 11:45 am
Kudos to you NightLad. People need to do their homework. You have spelled it out so clearly. Only during elections is abortion/pro-choice such a major issue, but it’s not the only thing that’s wrong with this country. I am a Christian and I do not endorse abortion, homosexuality, or any behavior that does not honor God. However, I don’t believe that people should be discriminated against and denied basic human rights and the right to choose. Whatever the Laws allow, God has given us free will to make decisions and we have to deal with Him one on one with the choices we make. If people are so pro-life then why are we going to war where innocent lives are taken daily, why is there a death row, why was it an acceptable practice for Black people to be lynched and discriminated against in America, not too long ago. People let’s stop being hypocrites. God is no respector of persons, God is love, learn from His life.
posted October 29, 2008 at 12:19 pm
What has always amazed me is how very easily the same God-fearing
conservative right-wing Republican pea-brains who call themselves
“evangelicals” can (1) be 100% in favor of the US military attacking bombing and killing innocent Arab and Muslim children and yet (2) be 100% opposed to all women choosing to have an abortion in the first few weeks of an unwanted pregnancy.
What would Christ Jesus say about such hypocritical behaivor?
THS
posted October 29, 2008 at 3:37 pm
In additon to what NightLad said:
Ronald Reagan and Bush 2 campaigned with a promise of a Constitutional Amendment to end abortion. Reagan also had a Republican controlled Congress.
Just like McCain, Reagan and Bush 2 flip-flopped on abortion. They were both pro-choice as governors
Yet Republicans fool voters every year. Why didn’t James Dobson put pressure on Bush? Why didn’t Evangelicals speak out about Reagan and Bush not keeping their promise?
The same people smear Obama with false statements about the Born Alive issue that FactCheck and PolitiFact hace debunked.
posted October 30, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I thought I was the only one that seen this! I’ve seen so much stuff,like Obama’s not a christian..da,da,da,he endorses abortion,da,da,da! I am a christian too,a minister’s wife,evangelist and nurse! And I give kudos to you LD,many times over! What you have said is so true! I have seen every debate,and not one time have I heard him say,he endorses abortion! The religious right,da,da,da or the evangelical authorities, are the Saducees and Pharisees of today! I for one,as women do not believe in the government control of my body! God gave it to me to steward! I guess I am pro-choice! But God believes in choice,not control.I am so glad that God chose to send Jesus for me! And Jesus chose to be obedient to the Father, and die on the cross!! I am so glad that he is faith & just to forgive us! Thank you for your post!
posted November 2, 2008 at 11:00 pm
This morning my Pastor interupted the Message to say “remember to vote because taxes maybe going up”. How insulting, Do they have to stick it in there.
I was listening to Pastor Hagee’s son today, he seems to feel that finally we have to return to a gold standard. Seems as though it was ok with out the gold standard the past 8 years but now we must return to a gold standard.
Election being on Tuesday is very convenient, I want my pastor or priest to pray with me and my politicians to work on public policy. I dont need a politician to pray with me. Here in Georgian the politicians seem to be more interested in praying with me than fixing the jobs problem or the transportation issues.
We do need a gold standard for policy makers.
posted November 4, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Oh, Sondra please! You don’t think the government should have control over your body. Good grief-we are talking about if a woman has the right to CHOOSE to kill her baby. Since you quote the Bible, I’m assuming you know He said to not kill? He will forgive, of course, but He also says to be sin no more. Anyone that thinks it’s okay to contribute to this genocide of inocents will have to answer for it.
posted November 10, 2008 at 6:35 am
What does religion have to do with running our government?
Apparently less than we thought.
All religion is superstition, and it is amazing that the most technologically advanced civilization on earth is the most superstitious one. It’s equally amazing that a nation founded on freedom FROM state religion is populated by a high percentage of wakkos who think that it’s OK to infuse their particular set of superstitions into public polity.
I used to think that Americans were charming with their false piety and its accompanying intolerance and mob mentality. Now I realize how utterly sick and confused these people are, reacting like cavemen who didn’t understand thunderstorms, thinking that the Good Lawrd helped them make a touchdown in a football game, not stepping on cracks to keep from breaking their mother’s back. Sick puppies.
From a historical point of view (as opposed to hysterical) America has been through periods of religious fervor before. It just hasn’t been as easily mobilized, exploited, and harnessed as political energy before. Another perversion of technology.
The outcome of this election shows that Obama either learned to tap into a bit of evangelical power or that the evangelical power is waning. It’s obvious that religion was an issue in the campaign; I am hopeful that the evangelical movement is withering on the vine.
By Thor, I do.
-Wexler
posted November 12, 2008 at 2:25 am
William, I swear you’re another one of those annoying evangelical athiests, hanging around a site for believers, hoping to convert us to your faith in the no-God. Stop proseltyzing! It’s one of those habits I thought athiests didn’t like about believers.