Obama could win 40% of the Evangelical vote

[WVUforREDSKINS]

Im absolutely shocked.

http://christianpost.com/article/20080607/32726_Obama_Could_Win_40_Percent_of_Evangelical_Vote,_Says_Expert.htm

A well-connected authority in the evangelical world said in an interview this week that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama could get up to 40 percent of the evangelical vote.

The fascination with the charismatic Illinois senator combined with evangelicals’ effort to not be seen as an appendage of the Republican Party could swing evangelical voters in Obama’s favor, predicted Mark DeMoss – a prominent public relations executive whose clients include Focus on the Family, Franklin Graham, and Campus Crusade for Christ – to Beliefnet.com.

“I will not be surprised if he gets one third of the evangelical vote,” DeMoss said in the interview. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 40 percent.”

For comparison, the public relations guru pointed out that one-third of white evangelicals had voted for former president Bill Clinton in his 1996 re-election bid during the “height of [the] Monica Lewinsky mess.”

“That’s a statistic I didn’t believe at first but I double and triple checked it,” he said, “I would not be surprised if that many or more voted for Barack Obama in this election.”

In terms of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, DeMoss spoke about the lack of enthusiasm within the evangelical circle for the candidate. He said that for months now he hasn’t received an e-mail, letter, or phone call from fellow evangelicals urging that they unite behind McCain and “put aside whatever differences we have.”

“It’s just very quiet. It could mean there’s a real sense of apathy or it could mean they’re waiting for the general election to begin,” he said. “But it’s a surprise, given the way e-mail networks work now.”

On McCain’s part, he hasn’t done much to reach out to DeMoss either. DeMoss said he has received one phone call from a McCain staffer about a month ago asking if he would like to help campaign for McCain. But the evangelical leader, who had enthusiastically campaigned for former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, turned down the invitation.\

Click for full article

[GoSkins561]

Hah, now that's funny.

[Predicto]

I'm doubting it.

[GoSkins561]

I'm doubting it.

Exactly, you can bank on three words "Partial Birth Abortion".

[DjTj]

Do black evangelicals count? As the article points out, a third of white evangelicals voted for Clinton, so if you add in the fact that 80-90% of black evangelicals are probably voting for Obama, then he's probably already at 40%.

Lots of statistics here: http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/green-full.pdf

[GoSkins561]

Do black evangelicals count? As the article points out, a third of white evangelicals voted for Clinton, so if you add in the fact that 80-90% of black evangelicals are probably voting for Obama, then he's probably already at 40%.

Lots of statistics here: http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/green-full.pdf

I do think "evangelicals" are having a hard time making a choice in the this election. IMHO, the majority of Evangelicals are having a hard time choosing between not voting at all or voting for McCain.

[Predicto]

Do black evangelicals count? As the article points out, a third of white evangelicals voted for Clinton, so if you add in the fact that 80-90% of black evangelicals are probably voting for Obama, then he's probably already at 40%.

Lots of statistics here: http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/green-full.pdf

I think things were a little different back when Clinton was running. First, Clinton himself is a Southern Baptist from Arkansas. Second, the past 15 years have seen an unending demonization of Democrats by certain radio and TV personalities and politically connected evangelical spokesmen. White evangelicals are not going to vote for Obama.

[Zguy28]

Exactly, you can bank on three words "Partial Birth Abortion".

Pretty much.

They will most likely stay home instead.

As a state senator, Obama voted against an Illinois state law that would ban late-term abortion, even though a federal law passed with the same wording.

Voted NO on prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion. (Mar 2008)

Voted NO on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)

Voted against banning partial birth abortion. (Oct 2007)

Trust women to make own decisions on partial-birth abortion. (Apr 2007)

Not to mention that it looks like Planned Parenthood's lobby has his ear.

GovWatch: Obama's "present" votes were a requested strategy

"In the Illinois state legislature, Obama voted 'present" instead of "no' on five horrendous anti-choice bills."

--E-mail from NOW attacking Sen. Obama's record on abortion issues.The National Organization for Women has strongly endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. A chain e-mail denounced Obama's record on abortion, citing his "present" votes on a succession of bills sponsored by anti-abortion activists.

The Facts: Under the rules of the Illinois legislature, only yes votes count toward passage of a bill. Planned Parenthood calculated that a 'present' vote by Obama would encourage other senators to cast a similar vote, rather than voting for the legislation [and asked Obama to vote 'present' as a strategy]. NOW never endorsed the Planne Parenthood strategy of voting 'present,' saying "They were horrible bills, and we wanted no votes." Illinois NOW and Planned Parenthood had different voting strategies on the abortion issue. It was impossible for Obama to satisfy both groups at once.

Source: GovWatch on 2008 NOW pro-Clinton campaign literature Feb 6, 2008

So while evangelicals are becoming disillusioned with the GOP's intentional lack of progress in overturning Roe, they still won't sit by and vote for somebody who advocates the choice to commit infanticide (in their POV).

[Leonard Washington]

they forgot to add, "and still will lose the election."

[DjTj]

I think things were a little different back when Clinton was running. First, Clinton himself is a Southern Baptist from Arkansas. Second, the past 15 years have seen an unending demonization of Democrats by certain radio and TV personalities and politically connected evangelical spokesmen. White evangelicals are not going to vote for Obama.

Well, as the Pew survey in my link shows, while the numbers have declined, 27% of white evangelicals still identified as Democrats in 2004, and according to the CNN poll, 21% of evangelicals voted for Kerry: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

There are definitely evangelical churches that are liberal; I went to one when I was a kid.

I think Obama's baseline evangelical vote is around 20-25%, and since he will increase turnout among black evangelicals and McCain is weaker among evangelicals than most Republicans, he could easily push into the thirties ... forty might be optimistic, but it's not correct to say that no white evangelicals will vote Democratic.

[Predicto]

Well, as the Pew survey in my link shows, while the numbers have declined, 27% of white evangelicals still identified as Democrats in 2004, and according to the CNN poll, 21% of evangelicals voted for Kerry: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

There are definitely evangelical churches that are liberal; I went to one when I was a kid.

I think Obama's baseline evangelical vote is around 20-25%, and since he will increase turnout among black evangelicals and McCain is weaker among evangelicals than most Republicans, he could easily push into the thirties ... forty might be optimistic, but it's not correct to say that no white evangelicals will vote Democratic.

Oh, I definitely was using hyperbole. Some will vote for him. Just not that many.

[81artmonk]

Maybe the catholics, but I doubt the bible belts would vote for him. catholics tend to be more democrat.

[Tastes Like Chicken]

On Abortion: Ok for state to restrict late-term partial birth abortion

On an issue like partial birth abortion, I strongly believe that the state can properly restrict late-term abortions. I have said so repeatedly. All I've said is we should have a provision to protect the health of the mother, and many of the bills that came before me didn't have that.

Part of the reason they didn't have it was purposeful, because those who are opposed to abortion have a moral calling to try to oppose what they think is immoral. Oftentimes what they were trying to do was to polarize the debate and make it more difficult for people, so that they could try to bring an end to abortions overall.

As president, my goal is to bring people together, to listen to them, and I don't think that's any Republican out there who I've worked with who would say that I don't listen to them, I don't respect their ideas, I don't understand their perspective. And my goal is to get us out of this polarizing debate where we're always trying to score cheap political points and actually get things done.

Source: Fox News Sunday: 2008 presidential race interview Apr 27, 2008

[GoSkins561]

On Abortion: Ok for state to restrict late-term partial birth abortion

On an issue like partial birth abortion, I strongly believe that the state can properly restrict late-term abortions. I have said so repeatedly. All I've said is we should have a provision to protect the health of the mother, and many of the bills that came before me didn't have that.

Part of the reason they didn't have it was purposeful, because those who are opposed to abortion have a moral calling to try to oppose what they think is immoral. Oftentimes what they were trying to do was to polarize the debate and make it more difficult for people, so that they could try to bring an end to abortions overall.

As president, my goal is to bring people together, to listen to them, and I don't think that's any Republican out there who I've worked with who would say that I don't listen to them, I don't respect their ideas, I don't understand their perspective. And my goal is to get us out of this polarizing debate where we're always trying to score cheap political points and actually get things done.

Source: Fox News Sunday: 2008 presidential race interview Apr 27, 2008

So how he votes and what he say's are somehow the same even though they are different? :doh:

[BigMike619]

TLC, that sounds like politicing at its finest.

I want change.

I want to listen to the people.

Your vote matters.

While it all sounds good, I would say about 25% of it will happen. He will hear us, but he will be swayed by those closest to him.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080609/news_mz1e9economi.html

this seemed to make sense to me as I read it this morning.

Few Democrats have seemed more comfortable talking about God than Barack Obama has. And yet few, if any, have had more problems with God at the ballot box – from rumors that he is a Muslim to doubts among Catholic and Jewish voters to repeated “pastor eruptions.”

This is a serious worry for the Democrats as they gird their loins for the general election. Four years ago the party finally grasped what should have been obvious for years: that running as a secular party in a highly religious country is a recipe for defeat.

George Bush not only beat John Kerry by huge margins among “values voters.” He also profited from a visceral sense that there was something un-American about the Democrats' secularism. Seven out of 10 Americans routinely tell pollsters that they want their president to have a strong personal faith.

The Democrats sensibly (if cynically) set about closing the God gap. The party ran candidates with impeccable religious credentials – Ted Strickland, a former Methodist minister, in Ohio; Tim Kaine, a former missionary, in Virginia; and Robert Casey, a pro-life Catholic, in Pennsylvania. The Democratic National Committee also hired a new species of political professionals – “religious outreach specialists.”

The leading Democratic candidates all talked about God with a gusto that had once been reserved for the Republicans. Hillary Clinton said that she was a “praying person” who had once contemplated becoming a Methodist minister. She also outraged some of her hard-core supporters by describing abortion as a “tragedy.”

John Edwards said his crusade against poverty was rooted in his Christian faith. The New Testament, after all, has a lot more to say about poverty than about gay marriage.

But none of them talked about God as well as Obama. Obama had a great conversion story to tell – he was the child of agnostic parents who had “felt God's spirit beckoning me” as a young man, and had been baptized at the age of 26. And he talked about religion in a way that appealed to both his party's religious and its secular wings.

The Republicans may have co-opted religion for reactionary political ends. But the religion that Obama embraced – the religion of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. – was a force for social reform.

In his career-making speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004, he noted that Americans worship the same “awesome God” in the red states and the blue states. Surely the Democrats had discovered the perfect solution to their God problem?

Two high-octane preachers in Obama's hometown of Chicago put paid to that hope. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s cries of “God damn America” almost shook the wheels off his campaign in March. Then recently, America witnessed another “pastor eruption” – Father Michael Pfleger, a white Catholic, mocking Hillary Clinton as an “entitled” white crybaby. Hardly the stuff of religious reconciliation and responsible social reform.

Obama's problems with God are not limited to Trinity United Church, which he formally abandoned last week. He may have done enough to quell worries among Jewish voters with a robust speech on June 4. But the persistent rumors that he is a Muslim – contemptible though they are – will remain a problem during the general election.

A poll for Newsweek in May found that 11 percent of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim, and a further 22 percent could not identify his religion.

Obama may also have problems with Catholic voters – a group that has been one of the most important swing votes in America since Ronald Reagan and that is over-represented in nearly all the swing states.

Clinton won 72 percent of the votes of white Catholics in the Pennsylvania primary – a nine-point improvement on her performance among whites as a whole and a 13-point improvement on her performance with white Protestants. Only 59 percent of Catholic Democrats, compared with 70 percent of Protestants, said they would vote Democratic in November if Obama were the nominee.

Obama's failure with Catholics was not for want of trying: he was backed by Casey and recruited an army of “faith community contacts.” Nor was it a one-off problem: exactly the same thing occurred in Ohio, where Catholics put Bush over the top in 2004, and Massachusetts, where even the Kennedy name could not rescue Obama.

The good news for Obama in all of this is that he is up against a Republican candidate in John McCain who has plenty of God problems of his own.

McCain has a tin ear for religion. He is in many ways a throwback to the pre-Reagan Republican Party of Nixon and Ford – a party that regarded religion as something that you did in private. He is much happier talking about courage than compassion. At one point recently he sounded confused as to whether he was a Baptist or an Episcopalian.

McCain has also been making a hash of dealing with his religion problem. He initially embraced the support of the religious right's own versions of Jeremiah Wright Jr. in the form of John Hagee (who believes that the anti-Christ will return to Earth in the form of a “fierce” gay Jew) and Ron Parsley (one of the leaders of the anti-gay marriage movement), though he recently rejected both men.

He seems blind to the fact that the leadership of the evangelical community is shifting to a new generation of much more appealing leaders such as Rick Warren.

All this makes for a much more even fight for the religious vote in a long time. But it will also make for a more intense fight – with the Democrats aggressively courting Catholics and evangelicals and the Republicans relentlessly trying to tie Obama to Wright.

Those people, in both secular Europe and on the secular wing of the Democratic Party, who had hoped that America's God-soaked politics would disappear with Bush are in for a disappointment

[prophet]

Pretty much.

They will most likely stay home instead.

As a state senator, Obama voted against an Illinois state law that would ban late-term abortion, even though a federal law passed with the same wording.

Voted NO on prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion. (Mar 2008)

Voted NO on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)

Voted against banning partial birth abortion. (Oct 2007)

Trust women to make own decisions on partial-birth abortion. (Apr 2007)

Not to mention that it looks like Planned Parenthood's lobby has his ear.

So while evangelicals are becoming disillusioned with the GOP's intentional lack of progress in overturning Roe, they still won't sit by and vote for somebody who advocates the choice to commit infanticide (in their POV).

This is me to a T.

The democrats loose the value voters everytime.... Because of the abortion, and gay marriage issues.

If there was a democrats who would stand up for the value side of things he/she would win in a landslide. IMO

[Tastes Like Chicken]

TLC, that sounds like politicing at its finest.

I want change.

I want to listen to the people.

Your vote matters.

While it all sounds good, I would say about 25% of it will happen. He will hear us, but he will be swayed by those closest to him.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080609/news_mz1e9economi.html

this seemed to make sense to me as I read it this morning.

Few Democrats have seemed more comfortable talking about God than Barack Obama has. etc.

That's a very informative article, Mike. Thanks for sharing.

Here's something else from Zguy's link, ontheissues.org-

We can find common ground between pro-choice and pro-life

Q: The terms pro-choice and pro-life, do they encapsulate that reality in our 21st Century setting and can we find common ground?

A: I absolutely think we can find common ground. And it requires a couple of things. It requires us to acknowledge that..

1. There is a moral dimension to abortion, which I think that all too often those of us who are pro-choice have not talked about or tried to tamp down. I think that's a mistake because I think all of us understand that it is a wrenching choice for anybody to think about.
   
2. People of good will can exist on both sides. That nobody wishes to be placed in a circumstance where they are even confronted with the choice of abortion. How we determine what's right at that moment, I think, people of good will can differ.
   

And if we can acknowledge that much, then we can certainly agree on the fact that we should be doing everything we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies that might even lead somebody to consider having an abortion.

Source: 2008 Democratic Compassion Forum at Messiah College Apr 13, 2008

[Zguy28]

Maybe the catholics, but I doubt the bible belts would vote for him. catholics tend to be more democrat.

I don't know. I know a lot of older, workign class evangelical Baptists who are still Democrats.:2cents:

[DRSmith]

He would win the vote in gaza

Recently, Al Jazeera reported on a group of young Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who took it upon themselves to get together and randomly cold-call Americans in the U.S., encouraging them to vote for Obama. In an interview on the English version of the Arabic news network, 23-year-old coordinator Abu Juyyab told the reporter that hearing Obama speak won him over.

“I thought, this was a man who is capable of change outside of America. … I think he can also bring peace to the area — at least that this is what we hope,” Abu Juyyab said through an interpreter. Since January, he and 17 friends have called Americans randomly via the Internet before each primary.

The young Palestinians’ active support of an American candidate does raise legal questions. Federal Election Law “prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly.” It also prohibits campaigns from working with foreign nationals to violate that ban or solicit funds or donations from them.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/14/with-interest-in-08-race-worldwide-obamamania-extends-beyond-us-borders/

[Predicto]

He would win the vote in gaza

Recently, Al Jazeera reported on a group of young Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who took it upon themselves to get together and randomly cold-call Americans in the U.S., encouraging them to vote for Obama. In an interview on the English version of the Arabic news network, 23-year-old coordinator Abu Juyyab told the reporter that hearing Obama speak won him over.

“I thought, this was a man who is capable of change outside of America. … I think he can also bring peace to the area — at least that this is what we hope,” Abu Juyyab said through an interpreter. Since January, he and 17 friends have called Americans randomly via the Internet before each primary.

The young Palestinians’ active support of an American candidate does raise legal questions. Federal Election Law “prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly.” It also prohibits campaigns from working with foreign nationals to violate that ban or solicit funds or donations from them.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/14/with-interest-in-08-race-worldwide-obamamania-extends-beyond-us-borders/

Interesting. Did Fox follow up with any investigation as to whether Obama's campaign had anything to do with this, at all, or was Fox just content with letting the insinuation sit out there.

Because they are just a little concerned, ya know, about whether laws were broken and all. By foreigners. Maybe terrorists even. Associated with Obama. Sorta. Well, it's just another concern about that Hussein guy.

[DRSmith]

Interesting. Did Fox follow up with any investigation as to whether Obama's campaign had anything to do with this, at all, or was Fox just content with letting the insinuation sit out there.

Because they are just a little concerned, ya know, about whether laws were broken and all. By foreigners. Maybe terrorists even. Associated with Obama. Sorta. Well, it's just another concern about that Hussein guy.

They explained it was not done at their behest, and that maybe the phone calls could be considered a contribution, but it was not that serious.

the more troubling thing for me if i was in the Us would be why do people that are in hotbeds of terrorism like Obama so much, there are nothing but positive articles about him in the ME and Africa?

I mean it could be the Carter connection but who knows

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Pretty much.

They will most likely stay home instead.

As a state senator, Obama voted against an Illinois state law that would ban late-term abortion, even though a federal law passed with the same wording.

Voted NO on prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion. (Mar 2008)

Voted NO on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)

Voted against banning partial birth abortion. (Oct 2007)

Trust women to make own decisions on partial-birth abortion. (Apr 2007)

ZGuy, if I may address some of those concerns...

but late term abortion bill did not include a provision that would've allowed late-term abortion to be legal to save the mother's life. I don't think many evangelicals would really have a problem with that.

As for the crossing state lines bills, IMO, those laws would be considered unconstitutional anyway.