Much
was made in 2004 of the so-called “God gap” between Republicans and
Democrats, becoming part of the conventional wisdom explaining
President Bush’s victory over Senator John F. Kerry.
As a result, the Democratic Party, including Senator Barack Obama,
focused heavily on outreach to religious voters, including white
evangelicals who voted overwhelmingly for President Bush, and talked
more openly than ever before about faith.
So did all the God-talk pay off?
The verdict appears to be mixed, but Mr. Obama does appear to have
scored some significant victories, especially among Roman Catholics,
according to nationwide surveys of voters leaving the polls on Tuesday
and telephone interviews of some people who had voted early.
One striking difference this year compared with 2004 was Mr. Obama’s
gain among those who attend church (or a synagogue or mosque) more than
weekly. Mr. Obama won 43 percent of them, Mr. McCain 55 percent. The
group accounted for 12 percent of the electorate. In 2004, the group
represented 16 percent of the electorate, with Mr. Kerry claiming only
35 percent to President Bush’s 64 percent.
The difference with 2004 in the vote of those who attend a house of
worship weekly was not as dramatic. They accounted for 27 percent of
voters, with Mr. Obama winning 43 percent and Mr. McCain 55 percent. In
2004, they represented 26 percent of the electorate, with Mr. Kerry
getting 41 percent and Mr. Bush 58 percent.
While the Democrats put enormous focus on peeling away white
evangelical Protestants from the Republican base, Mr. McCain, who has
had at times a tense relationship with the group, still took 73 percent
of that vote, compared with Mr. Obama’s 26 percent. They accounted for
nearly a quarter of the electorate, just as in 2004, when President
Bush won a whopping 78 percent of their votes, with Mr. Kerry getting
only 21 percent.
Notably, Mr. Obama failed to do even as well as former Vice
President Al Gore in 2000, when he ran against then-Texas Gov. George
W. Bush. Mr. Gore won 30 percent of that vote that year and Mr. Bush
won 68 percent.
On the other end of the religious spectrum, Mr. Obama won 67 percent
of those who never attend church, while 30 percent of those voters went
for Mr. McCain. The group represented 16 percent of voters. In 2004,
Mr. Kerry beat Mr. Bush 62 percent to 36 percent in that group, which
accounted for 15 percent of the electorate.
But religious experts said the swing in the Catholic vote may be one
of the more significant political developments, despite the emphasis
that Democrats have put on attracting evangelical voters. Although Mr.
Kerry is Catholic, he won only 47 percent of Catholic voters, while
President Bush drew 52 percent. That represented a reversal from 2000
when Mr. Gore won 50 percent of Catholics and Mr. Bush won 47 percent.
On Tuesday, Catholics, who accounted for about a quarter of the
electorate, supported Mr. Obama, at 54 percent, over Mr. McCain, at 45
percent.
A
little over a month ago, just as it was becoming clear that Barack
Obama would win the election, I happened to be reading several
commentaries on the Civil Rights Movement written by the theologian
Reinhold Niebuhr, whose theology was an important influence on Martin
Luther King Jr. The final paragraph of one written in 1963 puts last
night's election results in perspective as well as anything I've seen:
"Attorney General Robert Kennedy was probably too optimistic in his
recent analogy between the history of the Irish and the Negroes in
America. After pointing out that an Irish Catholic was elected
President less than a century after the anti-Irish riots of the 'know
nothing' movement, he predicted that a Negro could be elected President
in another half century. But the analogy is not exact. The Irish merely
affronted us by having a different religion and a different place of
origin than 'true' Americans. The Negroes affront us by diverging from
the dominant type all to obviously. Their skin is black. And our
celebrated reason is too errant to digest the difference."
Bobby Kennedy was right. To echo comments Bill made when Obama won
the Democratic nomination, whether or not one agrees with Obama's
policies, he ran a brilliant campaign and has achieved a victory that
would have seemed unfathomable even a few years ago. His election is
monumental in the most literal sense. Two small illustrations:
yesterday afternoon I watched a middle aged black man videotaping his
trip to the polling place to cast his vote. And this morning, driving
my children to school, I passed a McCain-Palin sign in someone's front
yard, now partially covered by a handwritten sign on which the McCain
supporter had written, "Congratulations, Mr. Obama."
If any MoJ readers will be participating in the AALS hiring conference in Washington, D.C. this week, please stop by and say "hi" at the reception sponsored by the religiously affiliated law schools. It runs tomorrow night from 7:30 until 9:00 in the Hoover Room at the Marriott Wardman Park.
One of my Catholic Social Thought students sent me a link to this piece, "Odyssey Catholics", which appeared in the National Catholic Reporter about a year ago. It profiles several young, "Millennial" Catholics (including Notre Dame graduates) who are wrestling with integrating the Faith into their, at present, nomadic lives, lives that are simultaneously isolated and interconnected. My own reaction was to be a bit discouraged that these young Catholics -- who seem sincere, idealistic, generous, etc. -- seem not to have been presented, in a way that "took", during their formation, with the importance of the sacramental life in the Church.
Barack Obama has won an historic victory. Although the size of his victory may be overplayed in the media, the nature of the victory, the character of the winner, and what it means for democracy cannot be overstated and commands our unified pride as Americans. As eloquently stated in Susan Stabile's post immediately below, the election of an African-American to the nation’s highest office is stunningly remarkable when contrasted with the ugliness of racism that persisted until so recently. That we as a people chose to move past those racial prejudices and send a person of color to the White House says so much about who we are as a people. That the exit polls confirm that race simply played no significant role in the election is a further source of encouragement for us. Jubilant Democrats and disappointed Republicans alike cannot help but be moved by this powerful rejection of an ugly history of racism and this electoral commitment to racial equality. Truly, truly, we should say, God bless America.
For those of us who are committed to the sanctity of human life, it is difficult to sugarcoat the results. The most pro-abortion politician ever nominated by a major party has been elected president. Although we pray for unborn children and always work to shine the light, dark days may well lie ahead for the pro-life cause. However optimistic one may be for the long-term, yesterday’s vote probably does mean that the day on which human rights for unborn are recognized has been delayed for a season.
At the same time, there is no reason for despair and much reason to be proud of our continuing efforts to bear witness to life. The cause of life has never been solely or even primarily a political campaign cause, and the prayer warriors and brave and compassionate counselors for life remain at the heart of our cause. And for those of us who are engaged in the political fight for human rights, we can and should take considerable solace in the fact that we fell only a little short, against great odds. Despite the perfect storm arrayed against him—an unpopular president of the same party, the eight-year itch to change parties, a declining economy, a disastrously-timed financial collapse, the fawning and uncritical media support for his opponent, and a huge disadvantage in campaign financing—our pro-life candidate nonetheless came far closer than we could have dreamed only a couple of weeks ago.
Now that a Democratic candidate has prevailed in the electoral college after two losses, the national media has buried the popular vote margin in news reporting and one has to search diligently on news web sites to find a complete report on vote numbers. When the figure is unearthed, we discover that the pro-life candidate far outperformed the polls and the expectations of the pundits to reach nearly to 47 percent of the vote. (One of my colleagues eagerly offered me a wager that Barack Obama would rise above 60 percent of the vote. Among many other silver linings from yesterday, which was a pretty good day for Republicans and an even better day for pro-lifers of both parties in Minnesota, I’ll collect those winnings today). Senator Obama’s lean majority (52 percent) by historical measures, is certainly nothing comparable to Ronald Reagan’s landslide re-election (59 percent) or even his initial election in which he won a majority in a three-way race and defeated Jimmy Carter by 10 percent points. Obama’s popular vote win was solid, but not large. A shift of only three percentage points would have made John McCain the president-elect. That John McCain climbed within reach is a testament to the hard and resolute work of many, including those of us in the pro-life movement. And it means that the hill to climb back is not very steep.
Given the tightening of the race at the end, Catholics for Obama rightly may take meaningful credit for the Obama victory. While exit polls show that a majority of faithful Catholics who attend weekly Mass were not convinced by the Obama appeal, a majority of Catholics overall did vote for Obama. And given the significant deficit for Obama among Catholics during the primary season, the efforts of Catholics for Obama may well have been decisive.
Catholics for Obama thus deserve our congratulations for a campaign well fought, along with our reminder that with victory and political power comes moral responsibility. All of us who grieve for the plight of the unborn in this nation must hope and pray that the promises made by Professors Cafardi, Kaveny, and Kmiec, that the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn children would be saved by an Obama administration, will now be realized. Let us all join together in endorsing the Pregnant Women Support Act offered by Democrats for Life (and not yet endorsed by President-elect Obama).
And when emboldened pro-choice Democrats move to enact the Freedom of Choice Act that would strip away even the minimal protections currently in place for unborn life (and they will), we should expect that Catholics for Obama will speak forcefully against it and insist that its enactment would undermine the Obama pledge to unify the country. And when pro-choice Democrats seek to repeal the Hyde Amendment and use taxpayer money to finance more abortions (and they will), we should expect that Professors Cafardi, Kaveny, and Kmiec will speak as publicly and vigilantly as they did urging his election to remind President Obama that using the wealth of government to fund the industry of death contradicts the theme of the Obama campaign to move beyond the politics of division. And we all must join together as a united witness for life because, after all, lives literally depend on our faithfulness.
One hundred years ago, an African-American man could not be invited to the White House without inciting near riots.
Fifty years ago an African-American could not sit at the same lunch counter or drink at the same water fountain as a white person.
Yesterday, the United States for the first time elected an African-American to serve as President of the United States.
In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed the dream that "one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal"...that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Whoever one supported in the election, this is an historic occasion. It neither erases our past history of slavery and its aftermath nor means that there is no longer any racism in this country. It does, however, signal hope for the attainment of Dr. King's vision for the future of our country.
As vicious and bitter as the charges in this political season have gotten, we have not, it seems, reached the level of political rhetoric in Poland, where the judiciary had to intervene to settle the dispute over whether it was slanderous to refer to President Lech Kaczynski as a duck.
(Full disclosure: I take this very personally, since Kaczynski was my maiden name.)
UPDATE FROM A READER:
On the theme of ducks and campaigns, you may have seen this, a delightful book by the authors of "Click Clack Moo." (I've read it a few hundred times to my almost-two-year-old after getting a paperback copy in a box of Cheerios.) My favorite line: "He gave speeches that only other ducks could understand."
I'll be in Dallas November 7-8 for the Thomas More Conference, but I wish I could bi-locate so that I could attend one of my favorite conferences, The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's Annual Fall Conference to be held Nov. 6-8 at Notre Dame. The theme for this year's interdiscplinary conference is the family. I am sure that our own Elizabeth Kirk played an important role in organizing the conference. Speakers include John Finnis, David Lyle Jeffrey, Janet Smith, Ralph Wood, Lynn Wardle, Bill Saunders, and Thomas Hibbs. The conference is so jam packed that attendees have to choose between Helen Alvare, Gilbert Meilander, and Francis Beckwith since they are all speaking at the same time. In touting the conference, I want to single out three speakers. MOJer Lisa Schiltz will give the Jack Schuster Memorial Lecture on Friday evening. Her lecture is entitled "Does Sarah + Joe = 3? The History and Future of Complementarity in Catholic Feminism." MOJer Richard Stith ("Abortion as Betrayal of Natural Dependents") and my daughter, Anamaria ("Against Dualism of Reason and Feeling") are on different panels from 3:15-4:45 on Saturday afternoon.
Rob's main objection to Bishop's Finn's analysis seems to be that the bishop says that an Obama voter "participates" in the evil of abortion. Rob points out correctly that such a voter may in no way intend abortion; he or she only accepts it as the lesser of evils.
But surely we also "participate" in those evils we facilitate, even if we do not intend them -- and indeed even if our participation is legitimate. If I morally inject morphine into a patient in order to stop his agony but also knowing it will shortly thereafter kill him, it would be sophistic to argue i have not "participated" in his death (as a material cause).
For a beautiful reflection on voting in this election, I commend to you this short essay by Dan Avila. Dan is a former student of mine who has worked for many years forthe bishops of Massachusetts.
