From Slate Magazine:


Reaganites for Obama?
Sorry, McCain. Barack Obama is a natural for the Catholic vote.
By Douglas W. Kmiec

My dear late mother would say: "Steer clear of mixing religion and politics in public discussions." Sorry, Mom, but the mix is unavoidable. Religion shapes us, and politics is our addictive national reality show. In any event, my faith, Catholicism, teaches that pluralism is enhanced, not threatened, when religions talk to one another.

Apparently, we're pretty persuasive. Catholics have been on the side of the top vote-getter (who, as we know from playing hanging chad, is not always the winner) in the last nine presidential elections. The Electoral College and the Supreme Court threw us a curve in 2000, but many Catholics probably put their choice of Al Gore in the "you can't blame us" department. Unlike our Jewish brothers and sisters who trend Democratic, and our Protestant friends who regularly populate Republican ranks, we're the ultimate flip-floppers, picking Republicans five times and Democrats four since 1972. Naturally, this led me straight to supporting Mitt Romney, whom McCain once snidely called "the real candidate of change," claiming that the governor changed positions more often than the rest of them (which from where I sit is a bit like asserting the Atlantic is wetter than the Pacific).

As a Catholic legal scholar chairing Romney's Committee on the Constitution, I worked to help him overcome a form of religious prejudice that had previously plagued John F. Kennedy, who needed to promise Protestant ministers in 1960 that his Oval Office would not have a hotline to the Vatican. Romney was pressed to assure voters that there wouldn't be a Mormon prophet lingering behind the West Wing curtains. Had anyone actually listened, Romney's "Faith in America" address was a tour de force in defense of the best traditions of religious liberty. But his eloquence—unfortunately and unfairly—was not reciprocated with faith in him.

But now that Romney's out, whom might Catholics turn to? Since I served at one time as Reagan's constitutional lawyer, it would be natural for me to fall in line behind John McCain. Don't worry about his conservative lapses, says President Bush, the foremost expert on lapsed conservativism. There is no gainsaying that McCain is a military hero deserving of salute. But McCain seems fixated on just taking the next hill in Iraq. His Iraqi military objective is laudable, but it assumes good reasons to be there in the first place. It also ignores that Catholics are looking to bless the peacemakers.

Now, don't think me daft, but when Obama gave his victory remarks in Iowa calling upon America to "choose hope over fear and to choose unity over division," he was standing squarely in the shoes of the "Great Communicator." Notwithstanding all of Bill Clinton's self-possessed heckling to the contrary, Obama was right—Reagan was a "transformative" president. Reagan liked to tell us he was proudest of his ability to make America feel good about itself. He did. Catholic sensibility tells me Obama wants it to deserve that feeling.

Much of the Catholic primary vote has been in the Democratic column, going at first to Hillary Clinton over Obama, as in New Hampshire, where she won 44 percent to 27 percent. But lately, Obama has been narrowing the gap, using the Catholic vote to vault to victory. In the Illinois primary, where Obama bested Clinton 65 percent to 33 percent, he attracted 48 percent of the Catholic vote. When Obama's share of the Catholic vote drops, the races tighten: In still-undecided New Mexico, only 39 percent of Catholic voters went for Obama.

Clinton lost Tuesday to Obama in Maryland, the first Catholic settlement in America, but also in Virginia, where the number of Catholic households in the burgeoning northern section of the commonwealth is up more than 67 percent over the last decade. However hard-working, intelligent, and policy savvy she may be (and she is), Clinton seldom inspires even the so-called "social justice" Catholics or reveals that rare gift of empathy that defined Reagan and that one glimpses in Obama. Say what you will about not preferring style over substance, modern leadership requires both, especially now when the international community—whose help we need to arrest terrorism—seldom gives us the benefit of the doubt.

But the primary statistics do not tell the full story. For the general election, it's important to peer deeper into the Catholic mind.

Catholics shed their Republican wardrobe in the 2006 midterm election, favoring Democrats 55 percent to 45 percent—a reversal of their 52 percent to 47 percent support for Bush over Kerry in 2004. Because Democratic and Catholic dogmas collide over the polarizing issue of abortion, Catholics do have to navigate some difficult ethical waters to contemplate voting blue. McCain and Huckabee—unlike either of the Democrats—join in the Catholic prayer for the unborn, but Republican promises have often left those prayers unanswered. While no papal instruction will ever condone the "right to choose," the church does ask for a consistent and realistic defense of life that actually takes steps to reduce the incidence of the practice, not just condemns it. Catholics will note that McCain and Huckabee's pro-life postures collapse when it comes to the death penalty. Even if the Supreme Court decides later this spring that lethal injection is not "cruel and unusual" under our Constitution, capital sentencing is often erratic and erroneous in light of the modern availability and reliability of DNA evidence. It is Catholic instruction that there are better ways to deter violent crime.

Beyond life issues, an audaciously hope-filled Democrat like Obama is a Catholic natural. Anyone seeking "liberty and justice for all" really can't be satisfied with racially segregated public schools that don't teach. And there's something deeply hypocritical about being a nation of immigrants that won't welcome any more of them. And that creation that God saw as good in Genesis? Well, even without seeing Al Gore melt those glaciers over and over again, Catholics chose Al to better steward a world beset with unnatural disasters. Climate change is driven by mindless consumption that devotes more ingenuity to securing golden parachutes than energy independence.

Of course, marriage and family are indispensable as well, and until now, Catholics saw the Republicans as having a lock on the family issue. But if either Clinton or Obama would acknowledge the myriad problems associated with a declining population in the developed world and affirm the importance of both having and raising children (and not just punting these duties over to Hillary's "village"), Catholics could well contemplate a Democratic adoption.
Sorry to tell you this, Sen. McCain, but a good number of the Catholics I know are not certain to light candles at the Republican political altar. Some of us who rode McCain's Straight Talk Express before the Republican commitment to a balanced budget put us on track toward a $400 billion deficit appreciate his confessed desire to redeem himself as a faithful conservative. But there are suspicions. After all, hanging out with Joe Lieberman and Russ Feingold comes well within the Latin canon: Similes similibus gaudent. Pares cum paribus facile congregantur—birds of a feather flock together. So instead, some Catholics may be hoping for a Huckabee miracle. Southern Baptists and Catholics haven't always gotten along, but there is something just downright Knights of Columbus-friendly about the guy—squirrel-roasting aside. Huck's delegate math will need to cash in more than a few chits with St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, but hey, in theology, if you can make do with five loaves and fishes, what's the big deal about delegates?

So, here's the thing: John McCain will have many Catholics in the pews a little while longer, but more than a few of us are thinking of giving him up for Lent. Reagan used to say that he didn't leave the Democratic Party, it left him. The launch of "Reaganites for Obama" might not be far behind. We might not be there yet, but we're getting close.

Douglas W. Kmiec, the former dean of the Catholic University of America School of Law, is presently the chair of constitutional law at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

Priest Says Catholics Looking at Obama & Clinton

A Catholic priest in Texas says that members of his parish are looking at both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Few parishioners have chosen McCain or Huckabee. Father Zuniga says his parishioners are not yet committed to either of the two Democrats and he is drawn between the two of them himself. However, he does say about Senator Obama "He is very sincere."

So far in the primaries, Clinton has won more Catholic votes than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican. Obama has come in second, ahead of any Republican but behind Clinton. However, in recent primaries, many Catholics have swung in his direction.

Thoughtful Article on the Catholic Vote

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-rutten1mar01,1,1169690.column

From the

Deciphering the Catholic 'swing vote': The church's history of nuanced social views frees members from litmus-test voting.

Tim Rutten, March 1, 2008

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisors have referred to next week's Texas and Ohio primaries as her campaign's "firewall" against Sen. Barack Obama's surging popularity. In both states, the New York senator's barrier is built on the same foundation -- the Catholic vote, and that fact has intriguing implications well beyond the primaries.

Today, one in four Americans is a Roman Catholic. What makes all this particularly significant in this political year is that exit polls across the country show that Catholics are casting 25% of all the primary votes -- mirroring, in other words, their percentage of the general population.

The importance of that turnout is amplified by the fact that Catholics now constitute the only true "swing vote" among discrete electoral groups followed by pollsters and social scientists. Though they no longer march in quite so precise a lock step, evangelicals still tend overwhelmingly to vote for the GOP candidate. African Americans and Latinos remain reliably Democratic, as do nine out of 10 Jews.

In the mechanism of American politics, Catholics are the pendulum -- and they consistently swing toward the winner. In fact, Catholics have gone for the winner of the popular vote in nine consecutive presidential elections, which means that, since 1972, they've supported five Republican candidates and four Democratic ones.

Through Super Tuesday, Clinton appeared to have a 2-to-1 lock on the Catholic bloc. After Super Tuesday, the Catholic pendulum -- like the campaign's momentum -- swung decisively toward Obama. The most recent polls say Catholic sympathies are too close to call in Texas and Ohio.

All this is likely to matter well after the Democratic convention because there's every indication that the Catholic pendulum is likely to swing away from the Republicans in November. George W. Bush lost Catholics when he ran against Al Gore, but narrowly carried them against John Kerry, mainly on the strength of Karl Rove's and Deal Hudson's adroit use of the abortion and same-sex marriage issues in major Midwestern and mid-Atlantic states. (Hudson was then the White House's liaison to conservative Catholics.) The conventional wisdom following that election was that Catholics had begun to split along the same lines as other Americans, with those who went to Mass weekly voting Republican, the same way Protestants who regularly attend services already do. In the 2006 midterms, however, Catholics -- particularly in the industrialized Midwest -- swung away from the GOP and gave the Democrats a 10-point margin.

Why?

Unlike evangelicals, Catholics have a long tradition of theologically nuanced social thought on which to draw: the church's so-called social gospel. The Catholic bishops, for example, have been demanding national health insurance longer than Clinton has been alive, and the term "living wage" was introduced into the American conversation by Catholic commentators. Similarly, the church's support for unions and opposition to restrictive immigration policies are well-articulated. More recently, both the Vatican and the American bishops have opposed capital punishment and preemptive warfare.

Now, the typical Catholic probably doesn't know an encyclical from an insecticide, but this sort of social thinking and preoccupation with social solidarity and a "preferential option for the poor" are woven into the fabric of even casual parish life. It's this background that has tended to make Catholics swing voters: uncomfortable with the sort of litmus-test left that once kept Pennsylvania's pro-life Democratic governor, Bob Casey, from speaking at a national convention, as well as the talk-show right that assumes opposition to abortion means approving the war in Iraq.

There's also an increasing awareness among the Catholic hierarchy that America's political right has consciously used the abortion issue to cut the church off from most of the positions it traditionally holds in American society. That may be one reason that, in its last statement on the political obligations of Catholic voters, the Vatican warned: "The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the church's social doctrine does not exhaust one's responsibility toward the common good.

"Whether Clinton or Obama comes out on top in the Democratic race, it's hard to see Catholic voters swinging toward John McCain, who is pro-war, pro-capital punishment, opposed to social spending and progressive taxation and in favor of stem cell research.

Rev. Wallis on Accusations Against Obama's Faith

Defending the Facts on Obama's Faith

by the Rev. Jim Wallis

I don't endorse political candidates, but I will defend them when it becomes necessary. On this, I agree with my friend Richard Land, the conservative Southern Baptist leader who is often identified with the Religious Right. Richard and I agree that faith has a place in politics and, when we agree on fundamental moral questions, have worked together. Richard says, "I have defended various candidates from time to time when I've felt that they have been unfairly or inaccurately criticized. At other times, I have been asked by the media for my assessment of a particular candidate's chances or weaknesses and strengths. Neither defense nor assessment should be confused with endorsement. As a matter of policy, I have not endorsed, do not endorse and will not endorse candidates."

So I am going to defend my friend, Barack Obama, from an increasing number of ridiculous and scurrilous attacks on the Internet and in the media. The latest incident occurred when a loud-mouth radio talk show host in Cincinnati let loose with a barrage of disparaging remarks against Senator Obama and kept using his middle name—Barack HUSSEIN Obama—over and over, seemingly to tie into the Internet accusations that Obama is really a Muslim who, as a child, attended a Muslim "madrassa" school in Indonesia that taught Islamic fundamentalism, etc. As a Chicago Tribune blog piece commented, "Anyone who uses Obama's middle name repeatedly, like Cincinnati radio host Bill Cunningham the other day, knows what he or she is doing and what feelings they are trying to evoke. There's simply nothing innocent about it."

The occasion for the shock jock's diatribe was his introduction of Senator John McCain at a rally. To his great credit, McCain denounced the remarks when he heard about them, disassociated himself from this kind of attack, and reaffirmed that his campaign would be conducted on higher ground. Good for you, John McCain. So of course, the local loud-mouth, Bill Cunningham, quickly withdrew his support from McCain and now is denouncing him too; which, of course, was quickly picked up by his mentor, the national radio loud-mouth Rush Limbaugh (whom the local Cunningham seems to desperately "wannabe"). And, of course, Rush is now denouncing both Obama and McCain.

I watched last night as other cable news shows told this story and subtly tried to add more fuel to the fire. Lou Dobbs downplayed the Cincinnati outburst as unimportant and suggested it was no different that telling the world that John McCain's middle name is "Sydney." Sure Lou; and it was interesting that Dobbs followed with more innuendos and rolled eyes over the moment in the Tuesday Democratic debate when Obama was asked about Louis Farrakhan, about suspicions that Barack's home Trinity Church on the south side of Chicago was "black nationalist," and about why Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, wouldn't come on Lou's show to discuss his alleged sympathies for Farrakhan, etc. It is certainly no mystery why Pastor Wright didn't cancel his retirement celebrations and drop everything to come on Lou's show. Would anyone?

An Associated Press story entitled, "Obama Fights False Links to Islam," commented on the new flare-up, "For Barack Obama, it is an ember that he has doused time and again, only to see it flicker anew: links to Islam fanned by false rumors, innuendo, and association."
During the Democratic debate, Obama again "denounced and rejected" the ugly anti-Semitic comments that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has often made, as he had done many times before. Farrakhan hadn't actually endorsed Obama, but recently said, "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better." Asked on Tuesday night about whether he would accept Farrakhan's support, Obama said: "I live in Chicago. He lives in Chicago. I've been very clear, in terms of me believing that what he has said is reprehensible and inappropriate. And I have consistently distanced myself from him."

So let's set the record straight. I have known Barack Obama for more than 10 years, and we have been talking about his Christian faith for a decade. Like me and many other Christians, he agrees with the need to reach out to Muslims around the world, especially if we are ever to defeat Islamic fundamentalism. But he is not a Muslim, never has been, never attended a Muslim madrassa, and does not attend a black "separatist" church. Rather, he has told me the story of his coming from an agnostic household, becoming a community organizer on Chicago's South Side who worked with the churches, and how he began attending one of them. Trinity Church is one of the most prominent and respected churches in Chicago and the nation, and its pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is one of the leading revival preachers in the black church. Ebony magazine once named him one of the U.S.'s 15 best Black preachers. The church says it is "unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian," like any good black church would, but is decidedly not "separatist," as its white members and friends would attest.

And one Sunday, as Obama has related to me and written in his book, The Audacity of Hope, the young community organizer walked down the aisle and gave his life to Christ in a very personal and very real Christian conversion experience. We have talked about our faith and its relationship to politics many times since. And after he gave his speech at a Sojourners/Call to Renewal conference in June of 2006, E.J. Dionne said that it may have been "the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy's Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican."

Like his politics or not, support his candidacy or not - but don't disparage Barack Obama's faith, his church, his minister, or his credibility as an articulate Christian layman who feels a vocation in politics. Those falsehoods are simply vicious lies and should be denounced by people of faith from across the political spectrum.

McCain Endorsed by Anti-Catholic Minister

NOTE: I post the following because it is the big news of the day as to Catholicism and the 2008 Presidential Election. I think it is an open question as to if (and to what degree) candidates need to be held accountable to every action and opinion of those who endorse them. Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama are honorable men and neither can be justly called anti-Catholic. The so-called "religious right" includes some troubling elements. It presents a difficultly for a candidate seeking their support without supporting all aspects and elements of this movement.

Also, Mr. Donohue is not always the most temperate and thoughtful Catholic commentator.

McCain embraces bigoted Pastor Hagee

Presidential candidate John McCain said he was honored by an endorsement by Pastor John Hagee, an evangelical who, while he is pro-Israel, has referred to the Catholic Church as "the Great Whore".

Thursday, February 28, 2008 By William Donohue

Yesterday, Senator John McCain said he was “very honored by Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement.” The Republican presidential hopeful also called Hagee “the staunchest leader of our Christian evangelical movement,” citing the minister’s pro-Israel stance. Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed this today:“There are plenty of staunch evangelical leaders who are pro-Israel, but are not anti-Catholic. John Hagee is not one of them. Indeed, for the past few decades, he has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’
To hear the bigot in his own words, click here. Note: he isn’t talking about the Buddhists.“In Hagee’s latest book, Jerusalem Countdown, he calls Hitler a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing. ‘The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself,’ he writes.

“For the record, Hitler persecuted the Catholic Church and was automatically excommunicated in 1931—two years before he assumed power—when he acted as best man at Joseph Goebbel’s Protestant wedding. Hitler even bragged about his separation from the Church.
As for doing nothing about the Holocaust, Sir Martin Gilbert reminds us that Goebbels denounced Pope Pius XII for his 1942 Christmas message criticizing the Nazis (the New York Times lauded the pope for doing so in an editorial for two years in a row).

Much to Hagee’s chagrin, Gilbert also says that Pius XII saved three quarters of the Jews in Rome , and that more Jews were saved proportionately in Catholic countries than Protestant countries. Indeed, Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide credited the Catholic Church with saving 860,000 Jews. No religion can match that.“Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot. McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee.”

Catholic Principal Inspired by Obama

Obama keeps packing them in, this time at St. John Arena

The Columbus Dispatch February 28, 2008

By Darrel Rowland and Catherine Candisky

...Yesterday, Obama drew what looked to be around 8,000 to the old basketball facility, and that figure was smaller than crowds in Toledo, Dayton and Cincinnati.

"It's history in the making, and I wanted to be part of it," said Mr. Laws, 53, a parks supervisor in Chicago whose son works in the Obama campaign. Both Mr. and Mrs. Laws, a Catholic school principal, had purchased and donned "Buckeyes for Obama" T-shirts.

Ersell Jeffers, 74, of Columbus, waited in line 11/2 hours: "I was so excited I didn't know I was cold until I got inside."

Not since taking a day off work in 1961 to watch John F. Kennedy's inauguration has Jeffers been more excited about a political candidate.

"I watch Obama on TV all the time. He is so inspiring. He gives you a message," she said. "We need change in Washington."

Interesting Data on Protestant Voters

Out-polling the Exit Polls

New poll demonstrates political diversity of evangelical voters

February 19, 2008 -- Faith in Public Life and the Center for American Progress Action Fund commissioned a poll in two Super Tuesday states, Missouri and Tennessee, to demonstrate what our television network pollsters are missing. Their poll, released last week, showed:
One-third of all white evangelical voters in both states participated in the Democratic primaries.
There were 160,000 evangelical Democratic voters in Missouri and 180,000 evangelical Democratic voters in Tennessee. That's as many or more than all African American voters, all voters over 65, or all voters who said the Iraq war is the most important issue facing the country in those states.

Majorities of evangelical voters in both states support a broader issue agenda that goes beyond abortion and same-sex marriage to include ending poverty, protecting the environment, and tacking HIV/AIDS.

Click here for full analysis at progressiveandreligious.org.

News outlets are picking up the story...

Peter Steinfels column, New York Times, "Evangelical Democrats, Exit Polls and a Matter of Balance", 2/2/08

Washington Post, "The Invisible Primary Voter: Evangelical Democrats", 1/9/08

Chicago Tribune, "WWED: What will evangelicals do?" 2/13/08

Jefferson City News Tribune (Missouri), "Poll finds evangelicals vote in both parties", 2/12/08