John McCain Saturday September 6, 2008

Palin Doesn't Change the God Gap

McCain's selection of Sarah Palin hasn't made white religious voters any more likey to support him, at least not yet, Gallup reports.

But religious whites were already supporting him by a more two-to-one margin over Barack Obama--the same margin that George W. Bush enjoyed over John Kerry--for months now.

Again, God-o-Meter asks: what does Barack Obama have to show for his unprecedented values voter offensive?

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Filed Under: Gallup, polls, religious voters, Sarah Palin, values voters

posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 8:59am Permalink Email This Add to:

John McCain Saturday September 6, 2008

It's Not Just Pro-Lifers Who Like Palin

The new Rasmussen poll contains more evidence that Sarah Palin has appeal beyond the pro-life crowd:

...[F]ollowing a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million people, Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters.

....Perhaps most stunning is the fact that Palin's favorable ratings are now a point higher than either man at the top of the Presidential tickets this year. As of Friday morning, Obama and McCain are each viewed favorably by 57% of voters. Biden is viewed favorably by 48%.

Percentage of non-affiliated voters with a favorable view of Palin: 59.

And:

The Palin pick has also improved perceptions of John McCain.... Among unaffiliated voters, favorable opinions of McCain have increased by eleven percentage points in a week--from 54% before the Palin announcement to 65% today.

Oh, yeah, the poll also shows the GOP really loves her:

There is a strong partisan gap when it comes to perceptions of Palin. Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Republicans give her favorable reviews...

Sarah Palin. She's not just for pro-lifers anymore.

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Filed Under: abortion, polls, pro-life, Rasmussen, Sarah Palin

posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 8:31am Permalink Email This Add to:

Barack Obama Friday September 5, 2008

Are Evangelicals More Republican than Ever?

Spiritual Politics notes that the new CBS News poll shows that McCain's support among white evangelicals has gotten a nice lift from convention week:

66% of white evangelicals are now backing McCain, up from 57% this weekend.

Barack Obama's evangelical support is down at 18-percent. That's a smaller share of evangelical votes than John Kerry got in '04 or Al Gore got in '00.

So much of the news media's coverage of evangelicals these last few years has centered on their broadening agenda and increasing openness to the Democrats. Is the real story that evangelical support for Republicans is more hardened than ever?

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Filed Under: Al Gore, evangelicals, John Kerry, polls

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John McCain Thursday September 4, 2008

How an Anti-Abortion Candidate Could Win Moderates

The strategy was audacious on its face.

Picking a vice presidential candidate who would energize the GOP's Christian Right base while also appealing to millions of independent voters, including lots of former Hillary Clinton supporters?

Sounded impossible.

Gallup is out with a new poll on the abortion issue that suggests the plan--McCain picking Palin--might not be so audacious after all.

The poll finds that most swing voters simply don't care much about the abortion issue.

[A]as Gallup polling in 2008 and all recent past elections shows, only a small fraction of Americans are highly activated on the abortion issue. Most Americans downgrade the importance of abortion to their vote, saying either that it's not a major issue for them (37%), or that it's just one of many important issues they consider (49%). Only 13% of Americans told Gallup in May 2008 that they vote only for candidates for major offices who share their views on abortion.

....the abortion issue appears to be even less of a factor for independent women than it is for their partisan counterparts. According to Gallup's May 2008 Values and Beliefs survey, 20% of Republican women said they vote only for candidates who share their views on abortion, as did 14% of Democratic women but only 8% of independent women.

All of which is to say that a candidate like Palin could (and has) mobilize the GOP's religious voters without scaring off the middle of the roaders that McCain will need to win in November. It's anti-convention wisdom. But the results of the Gallup poll are loud and clear.

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Filed Under: abortion, Gallup, poll, running mates, Sarah Palin

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Barack Obama Thursday September 4, 2008

Obama's New Pro-Choice Ad Silent on Abortion Reduction

Barack Obama's out with a new pro-choice ad that's airing in at least seven swing states. Politico reports that the spit is the first major abortion-related ad from either side in the general election. Though Obama made big news this year for coming out in favor of some abortion restrictions and for his party's new platform language on reducing demand for abortion, the ad mentions neither. It's straight-up pro choice.

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Filed Under: abortion, Democratic platform, Politico, pro-choice

posted by Dan Gilgoff @11:07am Permalink Email This Add to:

John McCain Thursday September 4, 2008

Dobson Backs McCain/Palin

Focus on the Family Action sent this around to supporters just before last night's Palin's speech:

Dr. Dobson: 'If I Went into the Polling Booth Today, I Would Pull the Lever for John McCain' ...."A genuine reformer. A deeply committed Christian."

That's how Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family Action, described Gov. Sarah Palin, who joined Sen. John McCain's presidential ticket Friday.

On a special Focus Action radio broadcast, Dr. Dobson said Palin has helped change his mind on McCain.

"If I went into the polling booth today, I would pull the lever for John McCain," he said.

Dr. Dobson applauded the Republican Party's strong platform plank against destructive embryonic stem-cell research, which uses much stronger language than in years past.

The broadcast also featured Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins, Kelly Shackelford and Tom Minnery, who expressed unanimous support for McCain and Palin.

"I don't remember this kind of electric moment since I went to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan," Dr. Dobson said.

Palin will speak at the Republican National Convention tonight at 10:30 EDT / 7:30 PDT. Most networks are expected to carry the speech live.

Next weekend, the action moves to Washington, D.C., for the annual Values Voters Summit. Confirmed speakers include Newt Gingrich, Lou Dobbs, Star Parker, Phyllis Schlafly, Bill Bennett, Chuck Colson and many more.

Palin and McCain have been invited to speak, as has Sen. Barack Obama

A remarkable turnaround from January 2007, when Dobson said: "I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances."

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Filed Under: Christian Right, evangelicals, Focus on the Family, James Dobson, Sarah Palin

posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 9:43am Permalink Email This Add to:

John McCain Wednesday September 3, 2008

How the Christian Right May Grow More Undead Still

The two speakers at tonight's convention who will vie to lead the GOP in 2012, should John McCain fail this year, are Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

What's the biggest difference between those two candidates and McCain? It's that Romney and Huckabee campaigned as pro-family candidates, painstakingly wooing the Christian Right, while McCain has ignored that base until now, a couple months before Election Day.

Consider these choice excerpts from Mitt Romney's address:

--Opportunity rises when children are raised in homes and schools that are free from pornography, promiscuity and drugs; in homes that are blessed with family values and the presence of a father and a mother. America cannot long lead the family of nations if we fail the family here at home!

--Did you hear any Democrats talk last week about the threat from radical, violent Jihad? Republicans believe that there is good and evil in the world. Ronald Reagan called-out the Evil Empire. George Bush labeled the terror-sponsor states the Axis of Evil. And at Saddleback, after Barack Obama dodged and ducked every direct question, John McCain hit the nail on the head: radical violent Islam is evil, and he will defeat it!

--To this we are all dedicated and I firmly believe, by the providence of the Almighty, that we will succeed.

Or this line from Mike Huckabee tonight:

--He doesn't want to change the very definition of marriage from what it has always meant throughout recorded human history. It is not above John McCain's pay grade to grasp the simple fact that human life begins at conception, and he is committed to protecting it.

It seems to God-o-Meter that the Christian Right is back on the ascent. If McCain is elected, it will be in no small part because of his 11th hour campaign to rally Christian conservatives to his side. If McCain loses, the two men competing most zealously to be the next Republican nominee are working even harder for Christian Right support. After being counted out since 2006, the movement is sitting pretty.

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Filed Under: Christian right, evangelicals, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Republican convention

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John McCain Wednesday September 3, 2008

No Meeting Scheduled with Focus for McCain's Colorado Springs Stop

The New York Times reported this morning that the McCain campaign recently requested a meeting with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.

'In July, when James C. Dobson, the influential founder of Focus on the Family, said on his radio broadcast that he, too, might drop his staunch opposition to a McCain presidency, campaign operatives quickly called to express their thanks and ask Dr. Dobson to meet alone with the candidate, a spokesman for Dr. Dobson said.'

This weekend's John McCain/Sarah Palin rally in Colorado Springs would seem the ideal time for such a meeting, no? But Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger says the McCain campaign has not been in touch about setting up any meetings between McCain--or his aides--and Dobson or Focus staff while in town on Saturday. "We'd be open to it if it was something the campaign would want to do talk about, just like we would for any candidate, but this sounds like a fly in fly out thing and I don't know if anything will happen, he says.

Schneeberger adds that Dobson is out of town on book leave at the moment and won't be around this weekend.

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Filed Under: Christian Right, Colorado Springs, evangelicals, Focus on the Family, James Dobson

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John McCain Wednesday September 3, 2008

More Signs of Christian Right Undeadness

John McCain' nomination for president once represented the waning of the Christian Right after the high watermark of its influence in 2004.

Then Sarah Palin, a darling of the movement, became John McCain's veep pick. The movement seemed to have some influence left after all.

And the AP reports a mostly overlooked story about the crafting of this year's Republican platform, with its promotion of a complete ban on abortion remains in tact, without exceptions for rape, or incest, or to save the life of the mother, despite McCain's support for those exceptions:

The votes came the same day that Palin and her husband, Todd, revealed that their unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant. The couple said their daughter planned to marry the baby's father and keep the child.

During his 2000 campaign, McCain argued for loosening the convention platform to include abortion exceptions. That triggered a backlash among social conservatives, who reared up again in recent weeks amid word McCain might be considering a running mate favoring abortion rights.

In a May interview being published in the October issue of Glamour magazine, McCain reiterated his support for the exceptions.

"My position has always been: exceptions of rape, incest and the life of the mother," the senator said.

When asked if he would encourage the party to include them in the platform, he replied, "Yes," adding: "And by the way, I think that's the view of most people, that rape, incest, the life of the mother are issues that have to be considered."

In a subsequent July 30 interview with Glamour, McCain said he had "not gotten into the platform discussions."

Plus, the party's evangelical contingent has been front and center at this week's convention.

Given all these developments, isn't it safe to say that the GOP still belongs more to the Christian Right than to John McCain?

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Filed Under: abortion, Christian Right, platform, Republican convention, Sarah Palin

posted by Dan Gilgoff @ 2:23pm Permalink Email This Add to:

John McCain Wednesday September 3, 2008

Palin's Record as a Christian Candidate

Challenging her biographer's claims that Sarah Palin hasn't brought faith and values issues into her political campaigning to date, The New York Times reports that Palin campaigned as a Christian candidate even while running for mayor of Wasilla:

The traditional turning points that had decided municipal elections in this town of less than 7,000 people -- Should we pave the dirt roads? Put in sewers? Which candidate is your hunting buddy? -- seemed all but obsolete the year Ms. Palin, then 32, challenged the three-term incumbent, John C. Stein.

Anti-abortion fliers circulated. Ms. Palin played up her church work and her membership in the National Rifle Association. The state Republican Party, never involved before because city elections are nonpartisan, ran advertisements on Ms. Palin's behalf.

Two years after Representative Newt Gingrich helped draft the Contract With America to advance Republican positions, Ms. Palin and her passion for Republican ideology and religious faith overtook a town known for a wide libertarian streak and for helping start the Iditarod sled dog race.

"Sarah comes in with all this ideological stuff, and I was like, 'Whoa,' " said Mr. Stein, who lost the election. "But that got her elected: abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing. I'm not a churchgoing guy, and that was another issue: 'We will have our first Christian mayor.' "

"I thought: 'Holy cow, what's happening here? Does that mean she thinks I'm Jewish or Islamic?' " recalled Mr. Stein, who was raised Lutheran, and later went to work as the administrator for the city of Sitka in southeast Alaska. "The point was that she was a born-again Christian."

God-o-Meter expects Palin to tread more gingerly on hot button as a vice presidential candidate, for two reasons. First, the Christian Right has been enthusiastically promoting her on its issues, relieving her of the need to so. Second, a big part of her job is appealing to moderate voters, including former women for Hillary. She can't to that as a culture warrior.

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Filed Under: New York Times, running mates, Sarah Palin

posted by Dan Gilgoff @11:10am Permalink Email This Add to: