February 2008 Archives

Last Monday, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released the first analytical hunk of what it is calling the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey (not to be confused with earlier Pew-sponsored “American Religious Landscape and Political Attitudes” surveys). Thanks to the Pew name, a fab marketing strategy, and a really cool website, it has received a huge amount of media attention—despite the fact that it offers precious little in the way of new information about the American religious landscape, and some of what it purports to have found is actually, well, misleading.

James Hutchins, the complainant in the IRS investigation of the United Church of Christ, has written in to suggest that I based my earlier remarks on the UCC press release, not the complaint itself. Actually, I based them on the Hartford Courant story and the IRS letter. I don't think I'd say anything different based on what the complaint says, but you can judge for yourself if I've been too gentle with Connecticut's quondam Standing Order.

Hutchins has also sent another comment to correct my account of his role in the Courant story. Assuming there are readers of this blog who do not go back and check comments, let me post the correction here as well.

I was just emailed a link to this blog. You've got your facts a little mixed up here and since I'm the guy you are talking about, I'll set the record straight.

I didn't leak anything to the Courant and did not speak to the Courant before this article appeared. As I understand it, Barry Lynn referenced me and the web site in an interview he did which is how I got linked into the article.

Also... While I can understand how on a brief review of the site you might conclude that UCCtruths is a "conservative watchdog blog", it really is not. I do not promote any form of politics on the site. On the UCCtruths message board, I regularly get grief from the theological conservatives of the UCC that I am not conservative. By intent, I try to keep my politics and theology out of my criticism of UCC leaders.

Today's Houston Chronicle/Zogby poll of likely voters in the upcoming Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio shows Clinton up strongly with Catholics, mostly white in Ohio and mostly Hispanic in Texas. Protestants split evenly between Clinton and Obama in Ohio, go strongly to Obama in Texas; others in both states are for Obama. The non-Catholic Christian vote (Protestant plus a significant number of the others) reflects very heavy African Ameircan support. Altogether, no surprises.

Mega-church leader and televangelist Rod Parsley recently gave his insight into the appropriate role churches should play in our political process. Like Obama's congregation, Parsley has been accused of violating IRS guidelines (in 2006) about campaigning from the pulpit. Parsley was recently interviewed by PBS's Religion and Ethics program about the situation. The pastor defended his actions saying that he always operated within the law, but also said that he had a "biblical mandate" to "engage in the battle of mindsets". He continued to say that he is proud to be involved in extending evangelical's platform to also include poverty, race, gender and "justice issues".
Hat tip to http://sandivillarreal.com/.

Keith Ellison, the first and only Muslim member of Congress, weighed in on the recent attacks on Barack Obama's name and faith. Ellison doubts that Americans wouldn't elect a Muslim president based on his or her faith. In an interview with AP's Frederic Frommer, the Congressman tried to portray America overall as having an unbigoted voting history. "Look, we elected a Catholic," Ellison said. "Mitt Romney was a viable candidate in this race. I don't think that his decline had to do with him being Mormon."

The Interfaith Alliance has come up with a Top Ten List of religious blunders from this season's campaign. President of the Alliance, Rev. Dr. C Welton Gaddy, said "I have witnessed more abuses of religion in this primary season than in any election in recent memory." Check out the video, here. It is an enjoyable refresher of the season.

Hagee endorses McCain. Catholics for Huckabee happy.

Brody flags a document from the Obama campaign's religious outreach team highlighting their candidate's success with religious voters--an array of data drawn from the exit polls. He concludes that Obama's not conceding the Church vote to McCain.

Today the Hartford Courant has bannered across its front page Elizabeth Hamilton's story on an IRS investigation of the United Church of State (er. make that Christ) resulting from Barack Obama's address to the annual convention of that denomination (which is his own) last summer. (You can check out the IRS' February 20 letter here and the speech here.) The UCC was sufficiently scrupulous about trying to separate politicking from non-politicking on this occasion to get a pass from Barry Lynn of Americans United--though, to be sure, Lynn is a UCC minister. Obama did let a remark or two drop that alluded to his campaign, and then there were those Obama staffers soliciting outside the convention hall, but should the UCC be held liable for those things? What seems to have stirred the IRS to action was a complaint by James Hutchins, who runs a conservative watchdog blog called UCCtruths, and who leaked the story to the Courant after, it seems, receiving an anonymous copy of the IRS letter.

According to strict principles of metaphysics, it may be ontologically impossible to distinguish a religious appearance of a presidential candidate before 10,000 co-religionists from a political one. The guy's running for president right? Fortunately, however, this need not (pace Americans United) be a metaphysical discussion. When a sitting president running for reelection gives a speech somewhere, the law requires a decision to be made whether it's in the discharge of his official duties (and therefore up to the American people to pay the freight) or a campaign appearance (in which case his re-election committee gets the bill). That fact that any action of a such a president is likely to matter to his reelection is irrelevant. By the standards of what happens every Sunday in the middle of primary or general election season, Obama's UCC appearance seems de minimis.

Yesterday we had a visit at Trinity from Daniel Kurtzer, now of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, whose three-decade career in the State Department included three years as President Clinton's ambassador to Egypt and four years as President Bush's ambassador to Israel. (After leaving that job and the department in 2005, he spent a year as commissioner of the Israeli professional baseball league, but that's another story.)

Kurtzer has been as scrupulously non-partisan a diplomat as you are likely to find. In his after-dinner talk, he made it clear that he had great appreciation for the efforts of the first Bush administration--Secretary of State James Baker in particular--in moving towards a peace settlement in the Middle East. He also made it clear that President Clinton's peace efforts at the second Camp David summit had been sorely lacking in diplomatic preparation, and that he believes the foreign policy of the current Bush administration has been a disaster.

At dinner Kurtzer disclosed that, just that morning, he had informed the Obama campaign that he would publicly endorse their candidate, a decision he had reached, he said, after much soul searching. When I asked him, after his prepared remarks, to explain why, he said that he had come to the conclusion that the Republicans needed to be defeated in November, and that Obama was best equipped to do that and to pursue a new course in Middle East diplomacy. Replying to questions from some older Jewish folks in the audience, who expressed considerable unease about Obama's candidacy, he defended his new principal, denouncing the hostile emails that have been circulating and defending Robert Malley, one of the former state department officials who has given Obama advice.

Kurtzer is an orthodox Jew who was an undergraduate at Yeshiva University. The Obama campaign has asked him to go to Ohio to speak to Jewish groups this weekend. He'll be there.

An important exchange about Catholic engagement in public life occurred this week in the pages of the Washington Post. On Sunday, Joe Feuerherd reacted to the U.S. Catholic bishops' recent statement on citizen's civic responsibility, a related webpage, and recent statements by some individual bishops. He suggested that the thrust of those statements meant that the bishops think anyone voting for Barack Obama is condemned to hell -- including Feuerherd himself, despite his status as a "pro-life, pro-family, antiwar, pro-immigrant, pro-economic-justice Catholic."

On first read, this will look like a convincing portrayal of the U.S. Catholic bishops being out to swing the presidential election to the GOP -- at least to those who have not read their actual statement. That document is far more careful and nuanced than Feuerherd suggests -- as pointed out in a counter-opinion published on Wednesday. There, Sister Mary Ann Walsh of the United States Catholic Conference outlines the full statement by the bishops. It's far more thoughtful than Feuerherd gives it credit for, worthy material for reflection by Catholics and by others seeking to understand how Catholics are asked to approach political matters by their leaders.

And yet. Feuerherd's tone is indeed contentious. But I believe he accurately quotes a number of yet more contentious and (in this Catholic's view) politically irresponsible statements by individual bishops in recent years that use their authoritative voice within the tradition to narrow Catholic political life dangerously. The bishops, too, risk falling into partisan sloganeering if their individual interventions in public life fail to reflect the full insight of their official documents.

Catholic voices, lay and episcopal, can help inform the deep process of public discernment represented by the current election -- but only if all sides reflect carefully before they speak. If the heat of the election leads these voices to caricature their own rich tradition, all this Catholic sound and furor will signify nothing to an electorate thirsty for serious reflection.

The IRS is investigating whether or not a speech Senator Obama gave at the Trinity United Church of Christ violated the church's non-profit status. The UCC denies any wrongdoing claiming that they consulted their lawyers to ensure they followed the law. Yet, in a letter to the church ,the IRS expressed concern over articles on the church website and tables with Obama campaign staff outside the event.

The 2008 election campaign, as we understand it, involves more than just the presidential race, and we hope to keep track of religious dimensions of other races, as these pop into view. First up (for us, at least) is the March 11 special election in Indiana's seventh congressional district. It features Democrat Andre Carson running to fill his late grandmother Julia's seat versus Republican Jon Elrod.

Carson was raised by his grandmother as a Baptist, but after some spiritual wandering found his way to Islam. If elected he would be the second Muslim member of Congress following Keith Ellison, who since 2006 has represented Minnesota's fifth (Twin Cities) district. Like Ellison (and Barack Obama), Carson has a bit of a Louis Farrakhan problem. Farrakhan was a friend of his grandmother's, attended her funeral, and insisted on endorsing her grandson. Carson has had to make sure the Indy Jewish community didn't get the wrong idea. He himself belongs to a mosque that had its origins in the Nation of Islam, but which has become part of the Sunni Muslim mainstream. The Midwest is the heartland of Islam in America, especially when it comes to African Americans--a fact that would only be underscored by the election of a second African American Muslim to Congress from that region.

Elrod is a United Methodist and, in the spirit of inclusivist Midwestern Methodism, something of a social liberal, at least by Indiana GOP standards. That is to say, he is opposed to current efforts to amend the Indiana constitution to forbid same-sex marriage. He's pretty serious about his religion, having spent three years studying theology at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. He belongs to Roberts Park United Methodist Church, the first Methodist establishment in the city and bastion of good works in the heart of downtown. It's not, however, a liberal church when it comes to gays and lesbians--i.e. it is not, in the terminology of United Methodism, "reconciling."

The Indianapolis Star reporter on the case is Robert King, who has done fine profiles of both men, here and here. Daniel Pulliam, the law student and sometime journalist who posts of GetReligion from Indy, is on the case too.

Watch Hillary Clinton talk about what her faith has done for her, in an interview with David Brody appearing on the 700 Club. Pat Robertson calls her a "brave lady." I guess the 90s were a long time ago.

A week ago, SurveyUSA showed Clinton winning regular worship attenders in Texas and Obama winning those who attend little or not at all. Now the same pollster shows their positions reversed. In both cases by healthy margins. So the more Texans see of the two candidates, the more the pious like Barack and the more the impious like Hillary?

There's evidence that Obama is gaining some ground among Hispanics in Texas. A few days ago, CNN's polling director Keating Holland, commenting on a survey showing a dead heat in Texas, said he thought Clinton might well receive two-thirds of the Hispanic vote there. Yesterday's SurveyUSA poll, showing Obama up by four points, had him trailing Clinton by only 13 points, 39 to 52. That was a smaller margin than among whites, who went for Clinton 56 percent to 39 percent.

From Nikita Stewart's nice profile of Huckabee staffer Brian Summers in today's WaPo:

"I went to churches. I went to Bible study groups. I didn't go in selling the Republican Party. I came in and sold a candidate," said Summers, who targeted wards 7 and 8 in Southeast Washington, where he hoped to strike a chord with black Republicans who are Christians and who he thought could identify with Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister. It worked.

Amy Sullivan dispels the myth that all evangelicals aren't liberals in her column for the Washington Post. Sullivan delves into why Republican have held a monopoly on the faithful and how this is beginning to change.

Mitt Romney's son, Josh, told the Desert Morning News today that he is considering running for Congress. More interesting is his belief that Mormonism cost his father a win in Iowa. Josh Romney said "When it's religion, you definitely take it personally. It's highly offensive, but I think that the vast majority of people we saw were very accepting. They said, 'Your dad shares our values and we don't care about his religion." Josh said that Mormonism wasn't an issue until Huckabee pondered whether Mormons believe that the Devil and Jesus are brothers in the New York Times.

The Obama Clinton fight over faith has escalated dramatically. According to Drudgereport.com, Hillary Clinton's aides have been circulating a photo of Obama wearing traditional Somali garb. The Clinton campaign has not refuted the charge, but the Obama camp accused his opponent of "shameful offensive fear-mongering". Stay tuned as this develops...

Barack Obama tried agressive outreach into the Jewish community Sunday. He met with Jewish leaders yesterday in an effort to clear up vakakta rumors. Speaking in Cleveland, he reasurred them of his stance on Israel, his relationship with his controversial pastor Jerimiah Wright, and the "Muslim" emails. Obama's remarks were likely spurred by the Clinton campaign's efforts to tie down this crucial bloc.
Obama's remarks were fairly tame and along the lines of previous comments. Most interesting was his vision of himself. Obama:

So the point I make is this that I understand the concerns and the sensitivities and one of my goals constantly in my public career has been to try to bridge what was a historically powerful bond between the African American and Jewish communities that has been frayed in recent years. For a whole variety of reasons. I think that I have served as an effective bridge and that’s the reason I have overwhelming support among the Jewish community that knows me best, which is the Jewish community in Chicago.

So my general view, and the reason that I raise this, this is always a sensitive point, what you don’t want to do is distance yourself or kick somebody away, because you are now running for President and you are worried about perceptions, particularly when someone is basically winding down their life and their career.

Update: the complete transcript

Seeing the Huckabee clip from yesterday's SNL put me in mind of the name of the show's original cast.

If Obama has a special card to play with Hispanic Catholics in South Texas (see here), it hasn't registered yet, according to this geographical breakdown of the recent WaPo/ABC News poll.

So what's up with white evangelicals? David Brody quotes what the grizzled (well, henna'd) Richard Land offers by way of advice to John McCain, which boils down to: Talk to me and my kind and embrace the old values voter agenda as tightly as you possibly can. Then you've got Jim Wallis and company who keep shouting from the rooftops that yes, Virginia, there are evangelicals who vote Democratic. (But who knows whether there are more of them now than heretofore?) You can talk with Time's Amy Sullivan on how to be evangelical and liberal tomorrow, if that interests you. Meanwhile, David Kuo, in today's Washington Post, offers his take on the question, which is only a little less familiar: Evangelicals, especially young ones like Kuo, are expanding their agenda, but it's not liberal and they're not likely to become Democratic voters. So the question for him becomes: Who next presides over the Religious Right (assuming that's the right word for it)?

Samuel Rodriguez contributes to tomorrow's Washington Post with his take on the rift between the GOP and Hispanic evangelicals. Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Evangelical Conference, feels that the immigration debacle of last summer drove a wedge between the traditionally agreeable Republican party and evangelical Latinos. Rodriguez: "In the end, Hispanic evangelicals are married to neither the Christian right nor the Christian left. We are the standard-bearers of Christian equilibrium. And this fall, we may force both the Democrats and the Republicans to move to the center to capture the Latino vote."

The Plain Dealer looks at how the upcoming primary is playing in Cleveland's black community with Mark Naymik's article on the challenges faced by congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Clinton supporter, and Margaret Bernstein's on Obama's church support. The latter focuses on Olivet Institutional Baptist Church and its pastor, Otis Moss, Jr. (Moss's son, III, has just taken over pastoral duties at Obama's church in Chicago.) Anyone who imagines that the African American vote is going to come up anything but big for Obama in Cleveland needs to imagine again.

Both stories ought to give Americans United for Separation of Church and State conniptions, to say nothing of the IRS. But there's a kind of default setting in American society that allows no-holds-barred politics in black churches. Politically mobilized white churches, liberal as well as conservative, don't get the same waiver. I wish it bothered me more.

Hillary Clinton does substantially better than Barack Obama with white Democratic voters who say they attend worship weekly or more, according to a new Gallup analysis. The differential among those voters is 57 percent to 29 percent, whereas among the occasional attenders and those who seldom or never darken the door of a place of worship, the percentages are 48-43 and 47-43. The significance of this finding is limited by the fact that frequent worshipers make up only 25 percent of the Democratic vote. The survey differentiates its sample by gender and age, yielding the notable result that the only group that provides a majority for Obama are seldom or never-worshiping men. It's clear that the disproportionate tendency of old people to go to church accounts for a considerable part of Clinton's success among the frequent attenders.

What's missing, however, is a breakdown by denomination. My guess is that most of what's going on here is the prevalence of Catholics among the frequent attenders. The exit polls certainly point in this direction. Older white Catholics are Clinton voters. Not much news there. Frequent attending white Protestants would be the interesting group to get a read on.

"On the streets of Chicago he began working to achieve a vision of protecting working people..."

Hanna Rosin has a lovely piece up on Slate today on her search for video and audio tapes of Mike Huckabee's sermons, when he was a Baptist pastor in Pine Bluff and Texarkana in the 1980s. They may not be, as Rosin says (presumably with tongue in cheek) "the 2008 campaign's version of the Pentagon Papers, or the Lost Ark," but they would cast interesting light on the trajectory of a bright young pastor-on-the-make, bathed in the blood of the burgeoning Religion Right and the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Rosin offers some conjectures about why Huckabee has sent down word to the various keepers of the tapes not to share them with prying reporters, based on interviews with various Arkansans and her hearing of a single tape she procured--on Ebay. Bottom line: Just the image of a young Huck preaching enthusiastically 20 years ago would be enough to give the non-evangelicals among us the willies, if we didn't have them already. My guess is that there would be--or would have been, earlier in the campaign--a week's worth of choice quotes and YouTube bites. Nothing to help the cause, for sure. Anyway, check it out.

David Brody has posted an email being circulated by progressive faith leaders (whatever exactly that means). I challenge you to read to the end without nodding off.

Dear friends, fellow clergy and people of faith:

We are people of faith from all traditions and backgrounds, all genders and races and all regions across our great nation. We are Americans who look to God and the holy texts for our moral compass in our private decisions and civic duties. We are concerned about the direction the current Presidential race is taking, and we feel we must bring attention, as clergy and faith leaders, to our concern. How will we, as Americans, come together in this moment to overcome past and current divisions and move forward as one in the best interest of our nation?

That is why we call on all Americans to bring their highest and best selves to this moment in time – to focus on content and character, depth of ideas, and a tangible vision for our future. In this, we must demand that our political leaders, participants in the political process, and the news media bring us together instead of pushing us back toward divisions that have plagued our past. We cannot afford it, and we must not accept it.

Delegates to our national conventions should be bound by principle, beliefs and a shared commitment to the common good that we are all in this together. They are charged with using their judgment individually and collectively to determine who will be our next Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Today's NYT piece on John McCain's alleged unethical behavior has caused quite a stir. Conservative talking heads like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham have rushed to McCain's side. Yet, it is unclear how evangelicals will react to the controversy. CBN's David Brody predicts much of nothing. Brody: "But my hunch is that for the most part, this story does nothing to radically change McCain's relationship with Evangelicals. I mean, what? All of a sudden Evangelicals won't vote for him because of this, or now vote for Obama or Clinton? I don't see it." Gary Bauer, who endorsed Mac a few weeks ago, suspects the Times of trying to drive a wedge between Christians and the presumptive nominee. Bauer: "Often it seems pretty clear that the real audience is Christian conservatives," he states. "That is, left-wing newspapers will go after conservative politicians in order to undermine them with Christian conservatives." Overall, there has not been much response from the Religious Right.

As the Democratic race moves into the two-ring circus of Texas and Ohio, the poll numbers show a healthy lead for Clinton in the Buckeye State but not much of one in Lone Star country. You'd think she would be doing better there, given that Latinos, who have been among her strongest supporters in the rest of the country, constitute a huge proportion of Texas Democratic voters. Clinton also has a lot of old ties in Texas politics, dating all the way back to her college years, when (as she is reminding people in the Rio Grande Valley) she helped register voters there.

But Obama may be resonating with Texas Latinos as a result of his experience as a community organizer in Chicago from 1983 to 1987. His work then was with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), which was founded by the legendary activist Saul Alinsky. The organization was and remains based in religious congregations, and it was through that connection that Obama found his own religious identity.

Sam Stein of Huffington Post noted what he thought was a new line in Barack Obama's victory speech in Houston last night that seemed to designed to tamp down suspicions that he views himself as some kind of messianic political figure. It went:

And I would not be running, as aware as I am of my imperfections, as clear as I am that I am not a perfect vessel, I would not be running if I did not believe that I could lead this country in that new direction, that we have a unique moment that we have to seize.

The expression derives from the New Testament, 2 Timothy 2:19-21:

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.

Obama's approach tends to be to portray his mission (so to speak) as something that requires the active participation of his audience. He can only accomplish it "if you do this with me." This idea of joining together in the upbuilding of society (in preparation for Christ's return) is classic 19th-century postmillennialism, expressing the optimistic, reformist worldview that once animated the mainline Protestant denomination to which Obama belongs--and which he clearly seeks to reanimate.

"I want to thank the faith leaders who are here, who gave me a little circle of prayer before I came out here." Prayers answered for him.

No one has called Wisconsin yet on the Democratic side, but the exit polls look very good for Obama. Of particular note, he came within a few points of splitting the Catholic vote (48 percent to 51 percent for Clinton). That can't help but bode well for him in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Rocketboom, a video blog, has an interesting video of some Teneesee evangelicals weighing in on the race. Note how passionately the subjects react to the efferevescent rumors of Obama's faith.

Barack Obama has an ad playing in Ohio that begins with religious rhetoric. The ad, "Choices", begins with a reference from Genesis 4:9. Obama says, "It is that fundamental belief. I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper. That makes this country work."

As we head toward the March showdown of the Primary Elimination Tournament, perhaps we should consider the religious roles assumed by each of the Final Four. On the Republican side of the bracket, there's underdog Mike Huckabee, struggling to evangelize the GOP with a new gospel of progressive conservatism--public works and help for the poor and music and art in the schools alongside no abortion and tough border controls. The overdog is John McCain, preaching the grim message of a 100-year war against radical Islam. Over on the more evenly matched Democratic side, meanwhile, is Barack Obama of the beatific vision, who conveys to the star-struck an ability to walk on water. He's matched against Hillary Clinton, the solution-monger, staking her claim on 35 years worth of knowing the subject matter inside out. So there you have it: the Evangelist, the Fire-and-Brimstone Preacher, the Messiah, and the Sunday School Teacher. Take your pick.

A good piece by Dan Gilgoff in today's USA Today on how evangelicals' inability to get behind Mitt Romney saddled them with John McCain. Of particular interest are the remarks by Nancy French, founder of the Evangelicals for Mitt website.

UPDATE: Jill Zuckman of the Chicago Tribune echoes the frustrations conservatives and Romneyites have with McCain. In Colorado, Zuckman interviewed self identified "Catholic evangelical" Betty Schuh who delievered the money quote on McCain: "He's not pro-life enough for me."

The Rothenberg Political Report's Nathan Gonzales is unimpressed with the Faith in Public Life/the Center for American Progress Action Fund poll of Democratic-voting evangelicals in Missouri and Tennessee. Jim Wallis takes a pop.

Amy Sullivan writes for Time this week about the Democrats' embrace of religion. Sullivan focuses on John Kerry's blunders with faithful voters in 2004. For an in-depth look at the religious history and current efforts of Edwards, Obama and Clinton check out this Religion in the News article by Mark Silk.

The Inevitability Express may not be hitting on all cylinders, but as the likelihood of halting it fades into oblivion, the question of why Mike Huckabee continues to stay in the race becomes ever more insistent. His decamping from the campaign trail to make a motivational speech on Grand Cayman suggests a certain lack of, ah, seriousness about his presidential aspirations. It does seem like he needs the dough, and the disabused view from Arkansas is that it's all of a piece with Huck's tendency to cut corners for the sake of financial gain. Maybe he's running because his campaign has put some food on the Huckabee table. The Los Angeles Times's James Rainey offers a less jaundiced view today, something more along supernatural lines. But perhaps all the secular explanations haven't been exhausted.

For a while it seemed to me, and I was not alone, that Huck was angling for a vice presidential nod from John McCain, but as time passes that seems less and less likely. He's more objectionable to the economic conservatives of the party than McCain is to the evangelicals, and McCain is going to need all the dough he can muster for the general--which means as much good will as possible from the moneybags of the party. But if not VP, then what's he angling for?

My candidate is to be the head of the next marquee national religious right organization. It was the Moral Majority in the 1980s, the Christian Coalition in the 1990s. With Focus on the Family running out of steam and a different kind of evangelical politics perhaps on the way, there's an opening for a new organization. Who better than Huckabee to be its leader? As he travels around the country, building up his list of supporters, that may well be what he has in mind. The precedent, of course, is Pat Robertson, who parlayed his 1988 presidential run into the Christian Coalition. Of course, Robertson had a well-heeled broadcasting operation behind him, and Huck has, well, a motivation speech in Grand Cayman. Maybe that's where the supernatural comes in.

Update: It seems that Robert Novak has been given a signal that Huckabee's a no-go on McCain's ticket.

At the end of Eli Saslow's fine piece on Democratic voters in Lima, Ohio in today's Washington Post, there's this from one woman on Barack Obama:

I mean, don't get me wrong. He's all right. If he gets the nomination, well, we're going to have to vote for him and get behind him because we're Democrats above anything else. But I just don't like the preaching that he's doing. He sounds like an old Bible-thumper to me. I like being talked to. I don't like being yelled at.

Jim Dwyer in the New York Times last week noted:

Catholics, who make up about a quarter of the registered voters in the country, have backed the winner of the national popular vote for at least the last nine presidential elections, going back to 1972....No other large group has switched sides so often, or been so consistently aligned with the winners.

Although it appears that the Democratic primary is past the point that Catholic swing voters will make a crucial difference in the nomination struggle, the potential for a photo-finish in the November general election means that whether Catholic voters break to McCain or Clinton/Obama may well be crucial. And the answer is not obvious at all: Will Catholics vote Republican in keeping with pro-life leanings? Or vote Democrat in keeping with their leadership's anti-war statements and support for direct poverty-reduction strategies? Though Latinos make up a large and growing sector of American Catholics, they are not united -- and vote less often than non-Latinos. Will they mobilize to punish McCain for recent Republican anti-immigrant venom, despite his own more moderate stance? And if Obama is the Democratic candidate, will Latino Catholics in the end support a candidate labelled African American, despite periodic tensions between those sectors at the grassroots? Lastly, will many Catholic bishops weigh in, explicitly or implicitly, on the candidates -- and if so, will American Catholics listen?

Given the disastrous handling of presidential power in the last 8 years, we may all be forgiven a little surprise that this could be a close election. But that looks increasingly likely. If so, keep your eye on this vital swing constituency: American Catholics may hold the key to the next four years.

Charles Barkley on "fake Christians" and how he plans to vote this year.

Georgetown University's Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs has a useful web page that tracks the pronouncements of the various presidential candidates on matters religious--listed by date and subject. The entries consist largely of the candidates' responses to questions by interviewers. Interestingly, there's been nothing posted from any candidate since January 22, which seems like an eternity ago by the chronology of the current campaign. Is it that the candidates have had nothing of note to say about religion for nearly four weeks, or that interviewers--call them the media--have lost interest in the subject? (I assume that the folks at the Berkeley Center are scrutinizing candidates' comments just as assiduously as ever.)

I will advance the proposition that the answer is yes to both halves of the question. Religion is most on the candidates' lips, and on the media's mind, during the early, getting-to-know-you phase of a campaign. When the casting of ballots begins in earnest, as it did this month, the significance of religion descends to the nitty gritty of mobilization and voting bahavior. The Democrats and their surrogates continue to make the black church appearances on Sundays. The Huckabees do what they can to turn out the evangelical base of the GOP. And the analysts sift the the exit poll tea leaves for differential voting patterns among religious groups, along with all other slices of the electorate.

Spurred by a call from the AP's Rachel Zoll, I've been thinking a little more about how to determine whether white evangelicals are showing any signs of drifting toward the Democrats this year. Unfortunately, in this regard the post-election poll of evangelicals in Missouri and Tennessee sponsored by Faith in Public Life and the Center for American Progress Action Fund was something of a missed opportunity. Yes, it showed that quite a few evangelicals vote in Democratic primaries--one in three in those states this time around. But it cast little light on the Democratic drift question. Evangelicals voting on the Democratic side could have been asked a simple yes-no question such as: "Do you normally vote Democratic in national elections?" The percentage of No's would have given some indication of the size of the drift, if any. Of course, additional questions cost money. But the total number of Democratic-voting evangelicals queried in the survey was, by my calculation, under 250. A simple yes-no question in a telephone survey costs about $1 per respondent. That would have been a well-spent $250.

Over the past few elections, I've been involved in focusing a lot of attention on differences in voting behavior based on frequency of worship attendance. The now notorious God Gap has to do with the tendency of frequent attenders regardless of religion to vote Republican, and for less frequent attenders to vote Democratic. In 2000, this gap (measuring by just the frequent attenders) peaked at 20 percent and stayed there until 2006, when it declined by seven percentage points. An important question for the upcoming general election is whether the gap will shrink further, thanks (perhaps) to the strenuous efforts of the Democrats to prove to the electorate that they feel its faith.

But what about the existence of God Gaps within the parties? In the primary season thus far, there has been a pronounced one on the Republican side. The most frequent attenders have gone for Mike Huckabee; the least frequent, generally for John McCain. On the Democratic side, however, the picture is a lot murkier. In close contests--where such factors are likely to show most clearly--Barack Obama tends to draw both the most frequent attenders and the least, with Hillary Clinton drawing most from the moderate middle--leave us not say the lukewarm. Arguably the explanation has to do with Obama's strength among two different groups: African Americans and secular liberals. They are, of course, traditional political allies--and religion has nothing to do with that, does it?

GodTube.com, a YouTube site for Christians that claims over 280,000 registered users, is conducting an informal presidential preference poll. It is no big surprise to see that Mike Huckabee garners 47% of votes, but it is interesting to see that Obama comes in 2nd place with 26%. This site is worthwhile to check out. With a virtual prayer wall, social network, and chat features GodTube looks well poised to mobilize Christian voters.

The AP's Eric Gorski had a story yesterday about how South Dakota conservative Christian activist Bob Fischer is trying to whomp up support for a third-party alternative for conservatives, now that John McCain is the presumptive designee of the Republican Party. This is the same guy who tried to do the same when it looked like Rudy Giuliani would be heading the GOP ticket. I'm not holding my breath.

While the archbishop of San Antonio expresses dismay that St. Mary's University would allow Hillary Clinton to hold a rally on campus, Barack Obama is retooling his message for blue-collar workers in heavily Catholic Wisconsin. Looking down the road to November, conservative legal scholar Douglas Kmiec is smitten, as a Catholic, with Obama over McCain. No question, Catholics are displacing evangelicals as the religious gang to keep an eye on at this point in the campaign.

Prior to Mitt Romney's withdrawal, there were five exit polls in states with high percentages of evangelicals that asked how much a candidate's religious beliefs mattered: Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Mike Huckabee won Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, and came in second to John McCain in Oklahoma and South Carolina. Romney came in third in all of them except South Carolina, where he finished fourth behind Fred Thompson. The question is: To what extent did anti-Mormonism play a role in his poor showing in these states?

Commentaries on the religious data from all available exit polls are finally posted (except Florida, which will be up tomorrow). Just click on the Exit Poll Commentary link under State by State to the left, and select the state of your choice. You'll find a pie chart with the religious layout of each state, a summary of the caucus/primary results, and links to the full exit poll, if such exists. Comments and corrections welcome--use this post to do so. Your editor will make such adjustments as seem warranted. Enjoy!

Mike Huckabee is no longer lonely in the Lone Star state. The Dallas Morning News reports that Huck has assembled a base of evangelicals to turn out his people on March 4. Additionally, Huck released a statement today stating that he recieved the endorsement of state senator Dan Patrick. Patrick on Huckabee: "As a committed Christian, I appreciate and respect his unabashed commitment to put God first in everything he does. His stance on pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family issues are important to Texas." This is important because Texas apportions their delegates based on local congressional districts. If Patrick and Co. are able to deliver districts for Huck, this will further slow McCain's inevitable capture of 1,191 delegates.

They go for Obama by a large margin, 52 to 44 percent, and white Catholics go for him 49 percent to 47 percent, whereas he lost white Protestants 41 percent to 54 percent.

Update: Apparently corrected exit polls show that Obama in fact lost Catholics by a narrow margin 48 percent to 45 percent, white Catholics 48 to 41 percent, and white Protestants 56 to 36 percent.

The big religious news out of Virginia on the Democratic side is that Catholics went for Obama, and that he came within three points of Clinton among white Catholics--just as he did among white Protestants.

Update: Apparently corrected exit polls show Obama winning the white Catholic vote 49 percent to 48 percent--and breaking even with white Protestants.

So what's the verdict on the religious significance of Mitt Romney's run? Here are some provisional thoughts.

1. Romney's Mormonism did hurt him. There were evangelicals who voted for him, but in those states where they are thickest on the ground, there were too many who didn't. As a generic Protestant, he would, I suspect, have been able to hold off Mike Huckabee across the South.

Update with empirical data in support of above: Fully 49 percent of GOP voters in Alabama said that the religious beliefs of the candidate matter “a great deal” to them. Of those, 61 percent voted for Huckabee, and only 9 percent for Romney. Evangelicals made up 77 percent of the vote. This would seem to provide some basis for ascribing Romney’s problems to anti-Mormonism among evangelicals.

2. The fact that Romney obtained endorsements from leaders of the religious right--Paul Weyrich, for example--was a good thing for the country. After the warm evangelical embrace of George W. Bush as "our Christian president," it was gratifying (at least for devotees of the constitutional prohibition on religious tests for office) to hear conservative Republicans insisting that "we are choosing a president, not a pastor."

3. The absence of voices among the pundit class denouncing evangelicals for anti-Mormon bigotry was unfortunate. This may be put down to the soft bigotry of low expectations: What do you expect from those people? But had Romney chosen to run as a business conservative who was moderate on the social issues, I suspect there would have been more stepping up on his behalf. He never enjoyed the period of media embrace that Huckabee did.

CBN's David Brody interviewed Christian Coalition leader and fallen GOP angel Ralph Reed on his thoughts of John McCain. Reed outlined what McCain needs to do to win over his party's base. Reed: "First, he should choose a running mate with strong conservative credentials, both on social issues and economic issues. Then he should adopt a conservative platform at the convention, and run a general election campaign that sounds conservative themes on taxes, terrorism, and values. If he does those things, he should be able to unite the party. If not, it will be difficult to rally the grassroots and win a highly competitive, close race in November." Thus, I'd infer that Reed isn't eager to jump on the Huckabandwagon anytime soon. In fact, it looks like he is more of a Romney 2012 kind of guy. The Washington Times has it that shortly after Romney's CPAC resignation, he met with a group of GOP giants to tell them he'd be soldiering on for the cause. Keep checking back to see how this plays out...

Former head of the Family Research Council and conservative leader Gary Bauer endorsed John McCain today. While Mike Huckabee picked up the support of Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich. Huckabee has recently been courting the Moral Majority vote with an appearance at Jerry Falwell son's church on Sunday.

The news from the Zogby poll of white evangelicals, conducted for Faith in Public Life and the Center for American Progress Action Fund after the Super Tuesday primaries in Missouri and Tennessee, is not very exciting. Yes, it reveals that twice as many of these folks now consider jobs and the economy the most important issue area when it comes to determining their vote, compared to abortion and gay marriage. So much, maybe, for values voting. But in actually casting their votes, they showed up as typical white Protestants. To be precise, in Missouri they were slightly less likely to support Clinton (but also slightly less likely to support Obama--evidently more stuck with Edwards). The bottom line is that there's no evidence that white evangelicals have a soft spot in their hearts for Barack Obama.

At a telephone press conference, it was disclosed that the numbers were not high enough for what might have been interesting cross tabulations. In Tennessee, 399 white evangelicals rounded up and and in Missouri, 293--but these included Republicans as well as Democrats. So the anecdotal evidence adduced by Jim Wallis et al. that young white evangelicals are, like young white non-evangelicals, high on Obama must remain just that--anecdotal.

The main point of the exercise seems to have been to make clear to the media that yes, Virginia, there are evangelicals who do not vote Republican. Anyone who's being paying attention knew that already, of course, but journalistic shorthand being what it is, the fact tends to get lost in the shuffle. This is not to say that it wouldn't be useful for the official exit pollsters to include the evangelical question on the Democratic side. In states like Tennessee and Missouri, evangelicals look a lot like Protestants on the Republican side, but they are differentiable in other places. So come on, hardheads!

Bill Clinton stumped yesterday in Potomac area churches for Hillary.

The Huckabee campaign has been justifiably on the warpath because Washington State Republican Party chair Luke Esser stopped counting ballots Saturday evening with 1,700 to go and McCain leading Huck by 242. And, oh, Esser declared McCain the winner. Given the totals--there were lots of votes, relatively speaking, cast for Romney, Paul, and Uncommitted--that's actually a fair amount of ground for Huck to make up. It almost makes you wonder if Esser knows something about which caucuses are outstanding. There are some major megachurches in Washington that could easily have turned a few hundred folks out for one of their own. By the same token, you've got to figure that the Huckabee folks are kicking themselves for not putting a little effort into the State of Washington, where evangelicals constitute a significant subculture.

It would be nice to know the makeup of the forces that pushed Obama to victory in this weekend's caucuses, but in the absence of exit or entrance polling the picture is murky. Maine, for example, was considered strong for Clinton, what with the tiny number of African Americans and large number of working class white Catholics. The caucus-by-caucus breakdown will tell us something, of course, but not enough.

So what happened religiously in Louisiana yesterday? In the black-white affair on the Democratic side, the only attendance category that Clinton won was the Nevers—the six percent of the Democratic vote who said they never go to chruch--who split for her 56 percent to 44 percent. Not a big deal. Obama did win the Catholic vote, 51 percent to 43 percent, but that was thanks to the large number of black Catholics in the state. White Catholics voters went for Clinton by a margin of 62 percent to 29 percent, a margin larger than the margin by which white Protestants voted for her (54 percent to 29 percent).

There were no surprises on the GOP side. Huckabee outstripped McCain among those who said they attend church more than-weekly by better than two-to-one. In all other attendance categories, McCain prevailed. Huckabee got the evangelicals, McCain the non-evangelicals (56 percent and 54 percent respectively). Likewise, Huckabee got the Protestants (52 percent) and McCain the Catholics (55 percent). But there were twice as many Protestants as Catholics, so Huckabee squeaked through.

For a straight-ahead Jesus-based endorsement of Obama by a liberal Democrat, check out this by Phil Hoskins of the Capitol Hill Blue blog.

While we've groused about the failure of the exit pollsters to track evangelicals on the Democratic side, Faith in Public Life and the Center for American Progress Action Fund decided to do something about it, and hired Zogby to track down white evangelical Democratic voters in Missouri and Tennessee on Super Tuesday. The full results won't be released until Monday, but the press release asserts that what they found were 159,000 in Missouri and 179,000 in Tennessee. According to the back of my envelope, in Missouri that was 19 percent of the Democratic vote (as opposed to 55 percent on the GOP side); and in Tennessee it was 29 percent of the Democratic vote (as opposed to 66 percent GOP). Altogether, in both states, there were twice as many white evangelicals voting in the Republican primary as in the Democratic.

White evangelicals voted for George W. Bush by a margin of three-to-one in 2004, and for GOP congressional candidates by a slightly smaller margin in 2006. So if the evangelical turnout by party can be taken as an indication of partisan preference, then there's at least some indication of a shift towards the Democrats among white evangelicals. But bear in mind that some portion of this apparent shift doubtless has to do with nothing more than the much remarked enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans. Come the general election, many of the GOP evangelicals who stayed at home on Super Tuesday will likely come out, enthusiastically or otherwise, to vote against the Democratic candidate.

Be all this as it may, it will be interesting to learn how the white evangelical Democrats in Missouri and Tennessee voted. I'm guessing Clinton--but if not, it will provide the first statistically significant indication of Obama's much vaunted ability to appeal to white evangelicals.

For lo, the prophet descended from the mountain--make that Pike's Peak--with a New Commandment, which read, Thou Shalt Vote for Huckabee. But it was as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, for the Straight Talk Express had already departed, with many of the Israelites on board.

Or something. Amid the plucking of the entrails of Mitt Romney's failed campaign, it's worth contemplating the inability of the putative leaders of the religious right to get their act together this campaign season. Dobson, it turns out, was carrying the torch for Romney, but he seemed incapable of actually carrying through on the endorsement that might have made a difference--beginning in, like, Iowa. I've long felt that Dobson's little empire was, in an emulous regard for the Saints across the mountains, modeled on Salt Lake City. But somehow he choked on actually endorsing the Mormon, and so is left with a guy that he and most of his peers seemed desperate not to endorse. And Republicans are left with another creature of the Mountain West, the cowboy from Sedona. In a land of spiritual enclaves, that's one that bears little resemblance to either Salt Lake or Colorado Springs.

The day after the Super Bowl, Michael Moore told Larry King that because of his Catholic principles he is "morally prohibited" from voting for Hilary Clinton for president as a result of her "war votes." The statement raises a host of questions. One can admire Moore's activism and adherence to principles, but doubt whether this rigid an application of them quite does justice to the complexities of governing.

But first it's worth noting that Roman Catholicism provides quite strong undergirding for Moore's strong anti-war stance: Catholic social teaching contains both "just war" and pacifist strands, with the former articulated especially strongly -- and clearly violated in the neo-cons' rush to war. And Pope John Paul II worked hard to prevent the Bush Administration from pursuing this "pre-emptive war". So Moore is on firm ground linking his Catholicism to a strong anti-war stance, and admirable for doing so.

Yet this looks a lot like a mirror image of the religious right's stance that "Christian values" regarding fetal life create a moral prohibition against voting for people like John Kerry, Mario Cuomo, and a host of other past and present Democratic politicians -- and recently, against voting for John McCain. Many observers will like Moore's stance a lot more, but the parallels are strong enough to create pause.

This is to let you know that commentary on the religious dimensions of the Super Tuesday voting is proceeding with all deliberate speed alphabetically, and has now reached Arkansas. You can reach it via the "Exit Poll Commentary" link under the State by State heading on the right-hand column.

James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, will announce that he supports Mike Huckabee for president. AP's Eric Gorski has the story. Dobson had never been satisfied with the GOP field. He famously blasted Fred Thompson for being too lackadaisical, Giuliani for his pro-choice positions, and most recently for John McCain for myriad positions .

His fellow Mormons were proud of Romney and excited about his candidacy not only because he is a co-religionist, but like most of them, a Republican. But they learned a bitter lesson from his campaign. Anti-Mormonism in American society is anything but dead.

Mitt Romney dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination today. His announcement at the Conservative Political Action Committee this afternoon included some remarks on religion. Romney;

"Americans love God, and those who don’t have faith, typically believe in something greater than themselves—a “Purpose Driven Life.” And we sacrifice everything we have, even our lives, for our families, our freedoms and our country. The values and beliefs of the free American people are the source of our nation’s strength and they always will be!" And "The attack on faith and religion is no less relentless. And tolerance for pornography—even celebration of it—and sexual promiscuity, combined with the twisted incentives of government welfare programs have led to today’s grim realities: 68% of African American children are born out-of-wedlock, 45% of Hispanic children, and 25% of White children. How much harder it is for these children to succeed in school—and in life. A nation built on the principles of the founding fathers cannot long stand when its children are raised without fathers in the home." Then, "Europe is facing a demographic disaster. That is the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life and eroded morality. Some reason that culture is merely an accessory to America’s vitality; we know that it is the source of our strength. And we are not dissuaded by the snickers and knowing glances when we stand up for family values, and morality, and culture. We will always be honored to stand on principle and to stand for principle."

In case you forgot, today was the National Prayer Breakfast.

If any Super Tuesday state can be considered an upset win for Obama, it was Connecticut, where he was down double digits in the polls just a few weeks ago and came out on top by 51 percent to 47 percent. In today's Hartford Courant, Mark Pazniokas has this secular account of how the Illinois senator did it. But there's a religious back story.

As was the case just about everywhere else in the country, Obama had a major problem with Catholics, losing them by a margin of 59 percent to 39 percent—and Catholics constituted 42 percent of the Democratic vote. This Catholic gap was, however, more than offset by Obama’s success in every other category—62 percent of the Protestants (including 55 Percent of white Protestants), 61 percent of the Jews, and 67 percent of religious “others” (Hindus, Buddhists, etc. though not Muslims). Interestingly, those with no religion divided pretty evenly, 52 percent to 47 percent for Obama--a smaller margin than he won this group by in a number of other states.

The Jewish vote in Connecticut is particularly noteworthy, given the strong preference of Jews for Clinton in New York, New Jersey, California, and (earlier) in Florida. Jews in Massachusetts broke for Obama as well, though much less strongly. Was this a New England thing? Perhaps it is not out of place to mention that the largest concentration of Jews in Connecticut is to be found on the north side of West Hartford, in close and pretty harmonious proximity to the largest concentration of African Americans in Connecticut, in the north end of Hartford and in Bloomfield. Let us also bear in mind that nowhere in the country is there a larger concentration of members of the United Church of Christ, the Mainline Protestant denomination of which Obama is a member—and whose annual convention he addressed in Hartford last summer.

The following is from my favorite informant on the doings of Christian conservatives in Georgia, a person I refer to as the Last Democrat in her suburban Atlanta church.

I guess you saw last night the big voter turnout for Huckabee in GA – fueled by his non-stop appearances in white evangelical pulpits the last couple of months, appearances with Sonny Perdue, constant promotion by right-wing talk radio blabber Neal Boortz with WSB here in Atlanta with that “fair tax” baloney, etc. He was at a rally this weekend with the “GA Christian Alliance” (changed name after the national Christian Coalition kicked them out a couple of years ago because the GA bunch was too over the top for even them!) and that ding-bat Sadie Fields (an old Ralph Reed protégé who took over in GA after he came out of the lobbyist closet a few years back). And yes, my church was telling people to go vote for Huckabee this past Sunday, just like tons of others.

On Super Tuesday, John McCain benefited greatly from winner-take-all primaries in big states, but he also assembled the broad religious coalition that characterized his previous victories. California is a good example: he won the unaffiliated (43%) and white Catholics (40%), broke even with Romney among white Protestants (37%), and finished second among white evangelical Protestants (29%). He also racked up big wins among Latinos and Asians. Similar patterns appeared in the McCain vote New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Obama lost the Jewish vote in New York by two-to-one, and by almost that much in New Jersey. In California, Jewish voters went to Clinton as well but by a much narrower margin, 48 percent to 44 percent (with the balance going to Edwards). Yet in Connecticut, Jews went for Obama by better than three-to-two--the highest margin of any white religious group, including those with no religion. And in Massachusetts, they also broke Obama's way, 52 percent to 48 percent. What gives? New York and New Jersey have disproportionately large numbers of Orthodox Jews, who are politically more conservative than their Reform and Conservative co-religionists--and, of course, metropolitan New York, where the Jewish population is most heavily concentrated, is very much Clinton country. But elsewhere, Obama seems to be in a position to compete on even terms for Jewish votes. Where are there enough of these to matter in the contests to come? Maryland and Pennsylvania and maybe Ohio.

Just about everywhere Obama fared poorly with Catholics on Super Tuesday. In heavily Irish Catholic New England, the margins were big. Likewise in the more mixed ethnic Catholicism of the Middle Atlantic States. In California, where Latinos dominate the Catholic population, even worse. (Not quite so bad in New Mexico and Arizona.) Even in his home state of Illinois, where Obama won big, he lost the Catholic vote to Clinton by a few percentage points. The exception was in Missouri, where he polled better with Catholics than with Protestants. So what's the problem? Does it have to do with class and ethnicity--as white working- and lower-middle-class Catholics in the Northeast and metropolitan Chicago, Latinos in the Southwest? Or is there something in Obama's Black Protestant style--his political revivalism--that just doesn't compute very well with Catholics? One way to tell would be to get a cross tab that showed how Latino Protestants voted.

On Super Tuesday, Mike Huckabee won four Southern states with a strong evangelical vote: Alabama (51% of the white born again Protestant vote), Georgia (45%), and Tennessee (43%), plus his home state of Arkansas. Evangelical votes also allowed him to closely contest Missouri (44%) and Oklahoma (39%). These figures resemble Huckabee’s showing in Iowa, among evangelicals and overall. However, Huckabee did not broaden his support by very much, even in the states he won. This pattern hurt him in other parts of the country, where evangelicals were less numerous and less supportive of his candidacy.

A similar pattern appeared in Barack Obama’s vote as well: he won Alabama and Georgia on basis of a strong black vote, especially from black Protestants. Although Obama won the black vote everywhere, it was not large enough to carry him to victory-- even in other southern states like Tennessee and Oklahoma. Indeed, Obama had trouble expanding his support among other religious groups, for the most part losing white Catholics, white Protestants, and Hispanics to Hillary Clinton. Obama continued his special to appeal among younger voters, and perhaps as a consequence won the unaffiliated and other religious minorities.

The bedrock of the Clinton vote continued to be white Catholics: 71% in New Jersey, 68% in California, and 67% in Massachusetts. It was Catholic votes that allowed her to overcome Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama in the Bay State. Minority Catholics swelled Clinton’s totals everywhere.

On the Republican side, Romney’s Mormon supporters were crucial to his success in the Mountain west. And John McCain continued to be the choice of the less observant Republican minority across the country.

What Super Tuesday has shown is that in a state with lots of evangelicals, Huckabee can eke out a victory in a three-man race.

Huck began his speech tonight stressing the importance of "one smooth stone".

Latino Catholics very strong for Clinton in New Mexico--but Obama stronger among the large number of religiously unaffiliated.

Obama's efforts in Utah paid off.

Huckabee very strong in Alabama, thanks to 48 percent of evangelicals--his best showing among them anywhere, if I'm not mistaken.

Obama stronger among Catholics in Missouri--Heartland Catholics different from the East Coast variety?

MSNBC is reporting that of the votes cast thus far evangelicals have broken: 33% Huck 31% Romney, 53% voted for a candidate that "Share my values" with a majority voting for Huck, and 21% voted for as "experience" as the most important issue.

Obama's stronger among the most and the least religious--a pattern we've seen before. Again, Catholics go for Clinton.

Huck's kicking butt in Tennessee. If he takes Tennessee and squeaks by in Georgia...

Connecticut looks a lot like Massachusetts on the Democratic side.

Clinton holds Catholics in Massachusetts, but Obama way stronger among Protestants and "others." Those others include those with no religious affiliation. Weekly attenders favor Clinton by a small margin but the occasional attenders like Obama and the no-attenders like him a whole lot.

Election Center 2008: Primary Exit Polls - Elections & Politics news from CNN.com

The bad news is that, despite pleas, there was no question to discern the votes of evangelicals on the Democratic side. Obama seems to have won overwhelmingly. Big news is how many white votes he got. As a sometime resident of the Peach State, I'm proud. On the GOP side, Huck unsurprisingly picked up over 40 percent of the evangelicals.

You will notice a new item on the right entitled State by State. Since the voting started, we have been commenting on what the various exit polls have to say about role of religion in the results. Under the circumstances, it seemed like a good idea to create a website where this commentary can be gathered together on a state-by-state basis. Each state page features a pie chart from the North American Religion Atlas website giving the state's religious layout, plus a link to the relevant exit poll. Most of the commentary will be provided by John Green and your editor, but other contributors are encouraged to have their say. All of it will appear first on the blog, and be transferred over as soon as we can. Enjoy!

Makes you wonder whether Dobson regrets not supporting Huckabee...or Romney...or Thompson...or....

The early presidential contests provide a glimpse of the role religion may play on Super Tuesday. Two patterns are evident in the initial election results: reliance on a single religious constituency and support from a broad coalition of religious groups.

Perhaps the best known example of the single-constituency result is Mike Huckabee’s support from evangelicals in Iowa. But other examples include Barack Obama’s reliance on Black Protestants in South Carolina; Mitt Romney’s support from Mormons in the western caucuses; Hillary Clinton’s strong showing among white Catholics and Jews; and John McCain’s support from the less observant. Most candidates need this kind of strong support to rise above the crowd in the initial contests—a point illustrated in part by Rudy Giuliani’s weak backing among fellow Catholics in Florida and John Edwards’ less than overwhelming support from white Protestants in South Carolina.

Utah's Mormons Loathe Huckabee.

E.J. Dionne's column today ends:

One of the politicians who spoke before Obama at the rally, Delaware state Treasurer Jack Markell, cited the New Testament letter to the Hebrews in which St. Paul spoke of "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It was a revealing moment: While Clinton wages a campaign, Obama is preaching a revival.

The Barna Group has announced a new survey showing that more born-again voters support Democratic candidates this year than Republican ones. Barna's surveys always have to be taken with a grain of salt, and in this case for at least two reasons. First, the born again are not separated by race or ethnicity, and so include a lot of traditional Democratic voters, African Americans especially. Also, the usual polling question ("Do you consider yourself a born-again or evangelical Christian?") was not employed, but some other questions that enabled Barna to distinguish the born again from the evangelicals. And the evangelicals in the survey favor Republicans--though there are a lot of undecideds. The bottom line: This is suggestive, but it would be really helpful if today's Democratic exit polls include the standard evangelical question.

Andrew Martinez answers a reader's question about whether John McCain has accepted Jesus as his Lord and personal savior in his Washington Post blog today.

Despite the candidacy of a prominent member of the church for the Republican nomination for U.S. president, there were virtually no political overtones in Monday's news conference in which officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that the new president of the church is Thomas S. Monson.

Bruce Olsen, the head of the church's Public Affairs Department, conducted the news conference which was held in the lobby of the Church Office Building on the central campus of the church in Salt Lake City. He opened with a reminder that the church takes no position in political contests. He also warned members of the press that questions touching on politics would be ruled out of order.

Richard Cullen of the Politico alerts those keeping track at home of Tuesday’s big contest to move Utah out of the Mike Huckabee column. According to Cullen, many Mormons still harbor great resentment from Huck’s “the Devil and Jesus are brothers” slight. In the general election against a Democrat, polls have the sunny Baptist losing 58 to 42 percent.
Worse for the GOP is that, as Bruce Webster shows, Obama has been reaching out into the Mormon community. Michelle Obama visited LDS headquarters today and sources have indicated that Obama is looking to steal moderate Utahans if the GOP nominates McCain.

ABC's John Paulos has a few questions on religion for the candidates.

Brett Grainger of the Christian Science Monitor has an interesting take on Mike Huckabee. Grainger feels that Huck's progressivism has widened fissures in the evangelical movement that bode ill for the GOP. Grainger: "Republicans can no longer take Evangelicals for granted simply by beating up the old piñatas of abortion and gay marriage. While a full-scale exodus from the GOP is unlikely, more "Bible-believing" Christians are likely to consider voting for a Democratic candidate this November than in any election since Evangelicals helped to put Jimmy Carter in the White House." Whether this will occur remains to be seen tomorrow and in November. Check back Tuesday for full coverage of evangelical data.

David Kuo and John J. DiIulio's NYT piece on faith based initiatives last week caused quite a stir. Check out the reactions from the current head of the White House department they criticize, a minister preaching the establishment clause, the general counsel of the American Jewish Committee, and the president of a Secular Humanist society.

Update: Meanwhile, check out the implications of the President's executive order on earmarks for his faith-based programming on Howard Friedman's blog, Religion Clause.

In today's Sacramento Bee, Aurelio Rojas has an instructive profile of Samuel Rodriguez, Assembly of God pastor and head of the 18,000-member National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference--the go-to guy for presidential candidates interested in courting the Latino evangelical vote. Rodriguez is excruciatingly even-handed in his comments, finding a nice thing to say about all remaining contenders. Lurking not far beneath the surface is the problem the immigration issue has posed for the GOP. If the failure of the comprehensive immigration bill broke Rodriguez's heart, the embrace of anti-immigration politics by Republicans will only send his flock into the Democratic camp--where they swung in the last election (see here). In the 2002 congressional vote, Protestants who are neither white nor black (i.e. Latino evangelicals for the most part) split slightly in favor of the GOP. In 2004, they broke 58 percent to 42 percent for the GOP. But in 2006, they went Democratic, by better than 53 percent to 47 percent. This is not a a huge portion of the electorate--between three and four percent--but in heavily Latino swing states like Arizona and New Mexico and Colorado and Nevada, it can make a difference.

The struggle against cognitive dissonance continued for Mike Huckabee's disappearing campaign in the run-up to Super Tuesday. Speaking over the weekend at Church of Christ-affiliated Faulkner University in Montgomery, Alabama, Huckabee declared, "I want to be president of everybody," while many in the crowd of hundreds waved signs that read, "Us Against Them!"

When LDS Church president Gordon B. Hinckley died last week, Mitt Romney broke the non-stop campaigning he was doing in preparation for super-Tuesday and traveled to Salt Lake City for Saturday’s funeral observances. For those familiar with the Mormon tradition, the candidate’s decision to attend the funeral was not a surprise.

Nicholas Kristof shows evangelicals the love.

On the eve of Super Tuesday, Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean is agitating for an exit poll question asking Democratic voters if they consider themselves born again or evangelical Christians. He would like to give the lie to the popular belief that (white) evangelicals only vote Republican. Of course, in general elections at least a quarter of them have, these days, been voting Democratic. But if it could be shown that a larger proportion of them are showing up to vote in Democratic primaries, that would be excellent news for the Democrats faith-based initiative, and a really cool talking point for Howard Dean and company. Of course, the news might not be so good. Anyway, Peter Steinfels lends his pen to the cause in today's New York Times. Will the pollsters heed his call? Tune in Tuesday night.

Juan Cole has a critique in Salon of the anti-Islamic rhetoric of the GOP candidates. As he notes, President Bush effectively turned American Muslims into Democrats. How much difference it will make beating up on "Islamofascism" and its cognates is not yet clear. But given that Americans remain honor-bound to respect Islam as a legitimate religion, there's a limit on how much of a rallying cry, a la anti-Communism, it can be--at least in my view.

In one of his widely circulated emails, Tikkun editor and "spiritual progressive" Michael Lerner, who once sold Hillary Clinton on the Politics of Meaning, more or less endorses Obama. As in:

Obama is a spiritual progressive. He believes that human beings are equally valuable whether they are white or black, American or Asian or African or European. Apply that to the Middle East and you get policy inclinations very different from those which have been insisted upon by