A Pivotal Vote

RELIGION is never far below the surface in American politics. A highly religious country, polls suggest 7 out of 10 US voters want their president to have a strong personal faith. Catholics currently make up nearly a quarter of the US population, Evangelical Christians even more than that. Their votes matter.





November’s election





In 2004, George Bush beat John Kerry by huge margins among ‘values voters’, and it has been said that the vote of the religious right in America twice helped George W Bush win the White House.



In this year’s tightly fought election campaign, both Republican candidate John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama know they need to reach out to America’s Christian right if they are to win in November’s polls. It was no coincidence that Obama chose Senator Joe Biden, a weekly Mass-going Catholic, as his vice presidential candidate and running partner, while McCain chose Sarah Palin, the curent governor of the state of Alaska. With strong Christian credentials, Palin is ardently pro-life and opposes same-sex marriage.



Over-represented in almost all the swing states, Catholic voters have played a vital role in selecting the American president since Ronald Regan won the office in 1980. Only 59 percent of Catholic Democrats, compared with 70 percent of Protestants, said that they would vote Democrat if Obama was their party’s nominee. In Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary, for example, 70 percent of Catholic voters chose Clinton over Obama. In Ohio, the former first lady took 65 percent of Catholic votes.



Once he was selected, the fact that some Republican campaigners have drawn criticism for propagating the disinformation that Obama is a Muslim (a Newsweek poll in May found 11 percent of Americans thought that was fact) showed how central Christian principles are to the campaign.

Both candidates have embraced their religious roots on the campaign trail. Obama, a 46-year-old Illinois senator, has told supporters he was the child of agnostic parents who had “felt God’s spirit beckoning me” as a young man, and he was baptised at the age of 26.



Mr McCain, a 76-year-old Arizona senator, identifies himself as Baptist. While happier talking about courage than compassion, he has solid Christian credentials and has made a strong appeal to social conservatives and evangelical Christians during his campaign.



The subject of religion, however, has caused both men considerable headaches. Although Evangelicals are more commonly associated with the Republican party, McCain has incurred the wrath of the Religious Right, whom he once called “agents of intolerance”. Obama, for his part, had to disown his firebrand black preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose cries of “God damn America” almost lost Obama the campaign in March. Obama swiftly disowned his connections to Rev. Wright’s Trinity United Church.



Then another of Obama’s supporters, the outspoken Catholic priest Fr. Michael Pfleger, offered the Democrat front-runner a poisoned embrace by racialising the issues in the fight with Senator Clinton. Fr. Pfleger was quickly put in his place by his bishop, Cardinal Francis George, but the damage to Obama, who has strenuously tried to present himself not as a black candidate, but rather as a man for all Americans, was already done.





The big issues





Quite how big an issue religion was to be during the campaign was highlighted the first time the leading candidates shared a stage after securing their nominations in August – a televised religious forum hosted by the pastor Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church in California.



Many see abortion and gay marriage as non-negotiable issues during this election.

Avowedly pro-choice, Obama supports partial-birth abortion, supports spending tax dollars for abortion, voted against notifying parents of minors seeking out-of-state abortions, and has been endorsed by one of the nation’s leading abortion advocates, Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for a Free Choice. McCain, for his part, is pro-life and anti gay-marriage.



During the Saddleback discussion, both men tried to woo the Christian vote, with McCain affirming he was strongly in favour of preserving the status of marriage, and Obama saying marriage should only be between a man and a woman while defending his support for same-sex civil unions.



On abortion, Mr Obama said he would, if elected, seek to reduce the number of late-term abortions and unwanted pregnancies, but stressed that he remained a supporter of the pro-choice ‘Roe vs Wade’ Supreme Court ruling.



Mr McCain drew warm applause when he said he opposed abortion “from the moment of conception”.



In 2004, these distinctions between the two men would probably have swung the election McCain’s way. But the religious playing field has changed since 2004. Then, many Catholic leaders favoured Bush over Kerry in the expectation that he would act on abortion. He failed to deliver, and conservative religious forces are now more sceptical about being wooed on such an issue.



Now, many Christian voters take a ‘whole of life’ view, embracing causes such as climate change, Darfur and poverty, opening the door to voting for a candidate such as Obama.

While Catholics hold strong views on issues such as abortion, stem-cell research and same-sex marriage, other issues have also become more important, such as war and peace, economic justice, immigration and torture. Evangelicals, too, now list issues like the environment, the economy and health care among their priorities, while being as frustrated about the war in Iraq as most Americans.



Showing how seriously he has taken the prospect of wooing Christian voters, the Obama campaign hired a senior religion adviser, a Catholic outreach director, a number of ‘religious outreach specialists’, as well as announcing an effort to reach younger religious voters. One outreach initiative, known as the Joshua Generation Project used house parties, blogging and concerts to attract young people of faith.



Just one week after clinching the Democratic nomination, Obama sat down with several dozen right-of-centre Christian leaders to be probed on his stance on various issues.

During the two-hour-long meeting, which opened and closed with prayer, Obama spoke about his faith and answered pointed questions on issues such as abortion, poverty, health care and Darfur. Following a meeting, a spokesman for the influential Franklin Graham, who succeeded his father as head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said he found the senator ‘impressive’ and ‘warm’.



Obama is keenly aware that by supporting abortion and gay marriage he will prevent many religious conservatives from voting for him, but he nonetheless hopes his ‘outreach’ programme will help dilute antipathy for him among conservative Christian voters.





The official stand





As evinced by their publication, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (2007), the US bishops do not tell the faithful how to vote in political elections, but rather say it is an issue of conscience.

“The responsibility to make choices in political life rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience,” write the bishops. Catholics are advised to vote for the candidate who is least likely to promote intrinsic evils and the most likely to promote “other authentic human goods”.

However, issues such as abortion, war, stem-cell research, poverty, discrimination, gay marriage, and immigration “are not optional concerns which can be dismissed”.

They recommend that Catholics seriously consider any candidate’s stance on ‘intrinsic evils’ such as abortion, racism, and torture, and instruct Catholics not to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil “if the voter’s intent is to support that position.” But Catholics are allowed to elect a candidate who does not unequivocally condemn an intrinsic evil for other “truly grave moral reasons”, say the bishops.



Thus, as Gerald Beyer, assistant professor of Theology at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, writes in the US Catholic magazine Commonweal, the issue over Obama’s voting record on anti-abortion legislation is not as clear cut as it may seem. For while McCain’s position on abortion is more consistent, the Republican candidate supports federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research – an intrinsic evil that Catholic teaching unambiguously condemns.



It is also noteworthy that Obama has also promised to reduce the number of abortions by fostering socioeconomic conditions that favour choosing life, and by promoting abstinence as a way of reducing unintended pregnancies.





The Hispanic angle





Three decades ago, Richard Nixon identified Spanish-speaking people as a political force in the US. Today there are some 40m Hispanics whose votes will be a determining factor in this year’s race to the White House. North Carolina is the fastest-growing Hispanic state. Chicago has become a major Hispanic metropolis. California is the largest Hispanic state in the Union. By 2040, one in three Americans will be a Hispanic .



As The Tablet’s Americas expert, Richard Rodriguez, points out, Hispanics are cultural conservatives on issues such as abortion and gay marriage – issues so dear to today’s Republican Party. But many Hispanics came to hear the attack against illegal immigrants as an attack on all Hispanics, so the last years of the Bush administration have seen an exodus of Hispanics from the Republican Party.



Before 9/11, George W Bush, who speaks passable Spanish and has two Hispanic sisters-in-law, opened up to Hispanics, seeking to provide a path towards citizenship for the 12m illegal immigrants in the US. After the 9/11 attacks, though, fears about immigration took over. Richard Rodriguez argues that what began as reasonable anxiety about the threat to ‘national security’ posed by a largely ungoverned border ended as xenophobic hysteria.

Such moves have brought the Hispanic community together as a homogenous electoral bloc – which is certainly not a good thing for the Republicans.





Decisions, decisions





Questions had been raised about Obama’s ability to attract Evangelical and Catholic voters during the Democratic primaries, when he consistently lost out on their support to Hillary Clinton. But up against McCain the trends could be different. A Gallup survey in May showed Obama with equal support to his Republican rival among Catholics. Meanwhile, a Calvin College poll showed Evangelical support for McCain stood at 57 percent, compared with 72 percent for George W Bush four years ago.



On Iraq, McCain supported and has pledged to continue support for a war that both the Vatican and the US hierarchy have declared unjust, seeing continuing military operations there as a catalyst for the insurgency and unlikely to promote sustainable peace.



Obama, however, consistently opposed the war in Iraq and supports a timely and responsible withdrawal. He has also called for talks with Syria and Iran, a position that is more consistent with Catholic teaching, as opposed to Mr McCain’s infamous jingle based on a Beach Boys tune – ‘Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran’.

As Prof. Beyer points out, there is much common ground between Obama’s policy proposals and the Vatican position. Pope Benedict XVI argued to the UN that the best way to eliminate inequality among nations, and to increase global security, is to promote human rights. Obama’s mantra is in tune with this, and he has called for a doubling of US foreign aid to $50bn by 2012, as well as the creation of a $2bn Global Education Fund.



Obama also shares common ground with US bishops on domestic issues such as racism. He aims to battle discrimination by providing better educational opportunities for the poor, eliminating racial disparities in the justice system, and giving fair access to credit and housing for minorities.

On the economy, meanwhile, McCain professes faith in the unfettered forces of the market. But Obama, while recognizing the potential of the market economy to advance the welfare of all members of society, believes this should be guided by reasonable and just social policies. There he stands in line with both the Vatican and the US bishops who have condemned an American brand of capitalism that fails to protect weaker members of society. Obama’s message of hope and change also has a strongly Catholic resonance, embracing the language of solidarity.

While McCain has promised to make poverty a “top priority,” on several occasions he has voted against minimum-wage increases.





An unpredictable result





Brian St Paul, editor of Inside Catholic magazine, argues, “A lot of faithful Catholics can’t vote for Obama because of his horrifically enthusiastic position on abortion, but they also don’t want to vote for John McCain either because a vote for McCain is a vote for another a war in Iran.” But Mr St Paul told Vatican Radio the result would be unpredictable.



“I think we’re going to see a larger number of Catholics opting for third party candidates,” he said. “Historically speaking there has never been a cycle like this in modern times… It’s going to be an election cycle that will make even our primary season look boring.”



In the run-up to the election, Democrat campaigners have been vigorously courting Catholics and Evangelicals, while the Republicans continued to try and link Mr Obama with Mr Wright. Which side has been more successful could be a key factor in deciding who wins the keys to the White House in November. One thing can be said with more certainty – the Christian vote will be pivotal.