Recently in Current Presidential Campaign Category

Streetprophets' Pastordan has been running a series of posts on "Things That Aren't Actually Right About Faith & Politics In The 2008 Election" in which he takes after various other commentators (not me, yet) for various comments, assessments, and pronunciamentos about religion and the campaign. It's nice to see him back to his old unreconstructed curmudgeonly self, and I think he's largely right to boot. I do have a few annotations and amplifications to offer.

1. Contra Berlinerblau, he's certainly right that the Obama campaign didn't have to worry at all about scaring off the secularists. Where else were they going to go? I'd just add that the Democratic Party, even at its most intensely secularist, has always made a place for religion--as a black thing. Obama got an automatic pass from the secularist base because he's, well, black.

2. OK, so Barack Obama is not now a member of the United Church of Christ. Since withdrawing the hem of his garment from Trinity U.C.C. he is a member of no church. He said he'd find a new one after the election, so we'll have to wait. Still, this most liberal of mainline Protestant denominations is the only one he's ever belonged to, and if there's any way to characterize him religiously, it's as a U.C.C.-type mainline Protestant--in his theology, his social views, his understanding of church and state. What about Jeremiah Wright's much bruited black liberation theology? That's hardly at odds with the denomination of which Trinity U.C.C. is a part. Afrocentrism is a dimension of the Protestant mainline. Where, after all, has James Cone taught all these years?

3. Mean as it is to call Steve Waldman a "Hierowanker," it's important to recognize that the Obama campaign's opening to the pro-life community was pretty modest. They were given a seat at the table to negotiate a revised abortion plank, but came away with less than they wanted. That a few prominent pro-life Catholics were prepared to go along says more about them than about any change of position on the part of the Democrats. Steve, like Amy Sullivan and E.J. Dionne, sometimes lets an eagerness to have the Democratic Party desecularize itself (or at least appeal to moderate-to-conservative "people of faith") outrun the facts. And the fact is that the religious outreach of the Obama campaign was not equal to the hype. That said, there can be no question that the invitations extended to religious voters by the DNC and both the Clinton and Obama campaigns were something new--particularly if you contrast them with the GOP's complete indifference to the religiously indifferent and lukewarm beyond its base. Does anyone remember the Republican Big Tent?

Silver's missing something here. As the Republicans have become the Party of Faith and Democrats the Party of the Unchurched, those unaffiliated Westerners have drifted towards the Dems.

You really do have a sense that the wheels came off the Straight Talk Express today. Why they'd let Palin anywhere near a public encounter with James Dobson is beyond me. So, as Ambinder makes abundantly clear, the distance between the Republican platform and what John McCain himself supports with respect to the "life" issues is now on full display. Worse than that, it's evident just how distant the "hard-core prolifer" (as Palin called herself) position embodied in the platform is from what even the likes of George W. Bush professed when running for president. So as if the $150k shopping spree and the freebies for the kids and the ongoing troopergate investigations and the continued failure to grasp the duties of vice president weren't enough, McCain may actually have to address himself directly to where he stands on the issues of moment to his so-called base. Then there was that rather cogent Al Qaeda endorsement, which left the McCain surrogates in a position of claiming that the terrorists meant the opposite of what they said, which would of course go for that Hamas endorsement of Obama as well. Bye bye, that talking point. Meanwhile, as the stock market continues to tank and gas prices slip down to a point where "drill, baby, drill" seems like yesterday's news, Obama's stock was back on the rise. Altogether, it was the story of John and Sarah's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Not to be outdone by the Jews, the Greeks have come up with a less genteel take.

Glossary:
mavro = black guy
malaka = limp dick

9:03. Something we haven't heard. What could that be? The plans.
9:04. McC. Nancy in hospital. Angry, angry angry. Fannie, Freddie to blame. Homeowners first. Not country?
9:05 O. Fundamentals not good, remember John?
9:07: Joe Wurzelburger in Ohio didn't want O's tax plan. O against American Dream. McC going for Joe the Plumber's vote.
9:09. O. Joe the Plumber.
9:11. McC. Joe the Plumber. No class warfare. Joe the Plumber.
9:12. Warren Buffet pays, Joe the Plumber doesn't.
9:14. O cuts subsidies to insurance companies. Any objections? Pay now, save later.
9:16. McC back to homeownership. That's a cut? Nuclear power. Wind tide solar offshore drilling. Millions of jobs. Across the board spending freeze. First hatchet, then scalpel. Bam! Slice! Ethanol bad. No tariff on Brazil sugar ethanol. Iowa's gone anyway.
9:20. O on Bush deficits. McC is not Pres. Bush. Hatchet and scalpel.
9:22. What's up with McC's little interruptions?
9:23. McC. I got the scars to prove my disagreements.
9:25. Bad, bad campaigns. Fess up. McC. Wouldn't be bad if there were town meetings. I think we've heard that before. But I regret John Lewis. I've repudiated everything on my side. He's more negative. Public financing.
9:27. O tough is tough. Let's talk policy.
9:30. McC you're running more negative ads.
9:31. Your running mate didn't stop the shouts.
9:33. McC I'm proud of people who come to our rallies. A few bad apples. Don't attack my people.
9:34. Smirking's the answer?
9:35. Ayers! ACORN!
9:36. O's Ayers story. ACORN story.
9:39. McC We need all the facts, but not O's facts. But my campaign's not about that.
9:40. Running mates. Uh oh. O Biden the best. Knows it all, knows where he comes from. For the little guy.
9:42. McC Palin a role model and reformer. Money back to taxpayers. Fresh of Breath Air. Understand special needs.
9:44. Palin qualified to be president? O doesn't say. Biden? McC yes but he's been wrong a lot. I guess Troopergate goes by the boards.
9:47. Oil. McC Nukes. Wind Tide Solar Natural Gas Cleancoal.
9:48. O ten years the time frame. Solar Wind Biodiesal.
9:51. Drill baby drill. Colombia.
9:54. Fuel efficient cars.
9:55. Colombia again. O as Hoover again!
9:56. Health care.
9:59. McC Obesity. 5K. Joe the Plumber again. Joe doesn't want to pay O's fine.
10:00. O Small businesses exempted from having to pay into a kitty. Stick a fork in the McC health plan.
10:03. McC Joe you're rich. Huh? Benefits taxed, yes; but you'll get 5k on top of that. Senator Govt.
10:06. Abortion and the Court. McC no litmus test. I'm a federalist.
10:09. O no litmus test either. Thinks Roe rightly decided. Right to privacy is in Constitution. Fat in fire. PIvots to equal pay case. Pretty good move.
10:11. McC O very very bad on abortion. And on voting present.
10:14. O common ground on abortion. What he should have said at Saddleback.
10:15. McC The Eloquence of Obama. Eloquence bad.
10:16. Education. O big deal. More money and reform. Parents need to belly up.
10:18. Civil rights issue of the 21st century. Choice baby choice. Charter baby charter.
10:20. O Local control good, feds help. No money left behind. Charter schools good. Teacher accountability. Vouchers not so good. Somebody's got to pay for good stuff.
10:24. Autism bad. Vouch baby vouch.
10:25. McCain can't control himself.
10:27. Final Statements. McC I Am Reform.
10:28. McC Choice baby choice. Country first. McCains do that.
10:29. O Biggest risk is same old same old. Brighter days ahead. No quick and easy. Over and out.

I've been looking at the crosstabs (premium access, I'm afraid) for yesterday's Rasmussen polls of five battleground states won by Bush in 2004 (VA, FL, OH, MO, and NC), and the news about religious blocs is this. Catholics in the South have shifted significantly toward Obama, most importantly in Florida, where Obama has turned what was a three-point deficit for Kerry into a 15-point advantage. And white evangelicals in Ohio, who backed Bush in 2004 by 75-25, now prefer McCain by only 65-33. If they had voted that way four years ago, Kerry would have carried Ohio by over 100,000 votes and been president for the past four years. Likewise with the Catholics in Florida, by a few hundred thousand votes.

Yesterday, Rev. Arnold Conrad, past pastor of Grace Evangelical Free Church in Davenport, Iowa, prayed the following at a McCain rally in Davenport:

I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah - that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons.

And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day.

While we understand the important role that faith plays in informing the votes of Iowans, questions about the religious background of the candidates only serve to distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama’s judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief.

But it's fair to say that the McCain campaign got the point: namely, that the pastor was implying that, notwithstanding his claims to be a Christian, Obama is really one of those paynim; and that he is their standard bearer against the Christians in this campaign. The Evangelical Free Church of America is a small premillenialist denomination that makes no bones about dividing the world into sheep and goats. How many other Americans share the pastor's views?

Well, you've got Rev. Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, who recently told religion newswriters (i.e. he was not just speaking in church):

I believe we should always support a Christian over a non-Christian. The value of electing a Christian goes beyond public policies....Christians are uniquely favored by God, [while] Mormons, Hindus and Muslims worship a false god. The eternal consequences outweigh political ones. It is worse to legitimize a faith that would lead people to a separation from God.

Because of his name, because of his antecedents, because of his color, and because of hate-mongering, Barack Obama has ratcheted up the faith-based anxieties of an undetermined, but not insignificant number of, let's call them Judeo-Christian Americans. There's a lot of ugly stuff out there, and it violates the spirit of the Constitution's ban on religious tests for office. It would be nice if the McCain campaign took the next step and came out forthrightly and said so.

9:02. A long list of excellent question, if I do say so myself.
9:03. Smiley faces.
9:08. Warren Buffet as Secy of Treasury! Or maybe Meg Whitman could auction off all those bad mortgages on EBay!
9:15. You love Fannie. No you love Fannie.
9:17. I wrote a letter. No I wrote a letter.
9:20. Blame to go around, but the GOP deserves a lot more.
9:21. OMG McC mentioned campaign finance reform!
9:23. McC won't do priorities. He will reach across the aisle to Joe Lieberman. The bus aisle?
9:25. O will prioritize. Energy, health care, education.
9:28. Sacrifices? Will McC name something to eliminate? Something in defense, unspecified. And earmarks, even good ones! Especially O's Chicago projector. That's the one specific.
9:30. When the going gets tough, the tough don't go shopping? Energy conservation at home. That's a species of sacrifice. Service.
9:33. More sacrificing from O.
9:35. O as Herbert Hoover--wow.
9:40. Social security not that tough. Medicare needs a commission.
9:43. I'm green. Nuclear power is the greenest. Hey, Nevada!
9:45. Not just nuclear, say O.
9:49. Drill, baby, drill.
9:51. Uh-oh. The Chamber of Commerce doesn't like McC's health care plan.
9:53. Will McC admit that he will tax health benefits? Kinda. Choice, baby, choice.
9:55. McC won't say health care is a right. It's a responsibility--of someone.
9:56. O says it should be a right. You will have to get your children insured. Whomps McC with the dereg stick.
9:59. Force for Good. That's US. I think he's serving O a softball.
10:01. Yes. $700B already in Iraq, which we didn't need to.
10:04. Obama Doctrine? Moral imperatives count, not just security interests. But limited resources. So it's working with others.
10:06. When I hear "My Friends," I reach for my gun. McCain doctrine? Bringing troops home with victory and honor.
10:08. Pakistan, here we come? Yes, if we can get Osama.
10:11. McC will too, but won't announce it. LIke during this debate. Work with the rough trade in Waziristan.
10:13. O followup--McCain doesn't speak softly. Kinda true, Barbara Ann.
10:15. McC followup--just joking.. I'll get Osama but I won't telegraph my punches.
10:18. Surgathon, Afghani style.
10:19. No cold war redux, saith McC. Ukraine. Moral support must be forthcoming. Hope for leverage.
10:21. Russia resurgens. Evil or not. O: evil behavior. McC: maybe.
10:25. Iran attacks Israel. We wait on UN? McC no. League of Extraordinary Democracies v. Iran. Never Again. O: no Persian nukes. No military options off the table. Prevent Defense best. Direct talks ok.
10:29. The first Zen question. What don't you know, and how will you learn it? O: Zen answer: it's what the president doesn't know that will happen, and we don't know what we don't know. On to the restoration of the American dream. McC: we don't know what will happen, or where it will happen. His father was all at sea. I know tough times. Country first. Bye.

A SUSA poll of likely Virginia voters released today shows Obama up by 10 points, 53-43. I thought it might be interesting see where Obama's new votes have come from, in terms of religious attendance. And so it turned out to be. Since SUSA's late June Virginia poll, in which Obama led by only two points (49-47), the numbers for occasional attenders and those who say they almost never attend have hardly changed at all. (Obama lost one point off his margin with the occasionals, gained one with the almost nevers.) Virtually the entire change has come from a shift among regular attenders, who constitute half of Virginia's likely voters. In June, McCain was leading among them 55-42. Now Obama's better than even, 49-47.

Who are Obama's new regulars? Since June he's picked up four points worth of white voters and 21 points worth of black ones--which, given that African Americans make up just under one-fifth of Virginia voters, means about the same number of both. Which means that about half of the new regulars are white and half are African American.

As Michigan goes, so goes Ohio? The big (2,262 likely voters) Columbus Dispatch Ohio poll, showing Obama up 49-42, has Buckeye Catholics flipping from 55-44 for Bush in 2004 to 49-44 for Obama. Protestants are just about where they were four years ago; unfortunately, the poll does not break out evangelicals. Jews prefer Obama 66-31--within hailing distance of the 70 percent mark I'm predicting. And note this. Among the 10 percent of Ohio voters who profess no religion, Bush dropped nine percentage points from 2000 to 2004, to 29 percent. McCain now stands 15 points below that. Other than African Americans (also 10 percent of the voting population), no voting bloc is more pro-Obama.