Entries tagged with “Democrat” from Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

Senator Robert Casey: "The Catholic Vote is a Myth"

At a September 18 roundtable discussion with religion reporters, five Senate Democrats talked about the role of religion in politics and Democratic outreach to religious leaders and communities of faith. Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) spoke of the need for politicians to respect the importance of faith in the lives of American voters and said "the Catholic vote" is not a monolith but is "every bit as diverse as every other group." Listen to excerpts from his comments.

(Photo by Tom Williams)

Listen to audio excerpt

By Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on September 22, 2008 2:58 PM | Comments (0)

Gary Dorrien: Back to the Subject

When the Democratic Convention started, Barack Obama's main challenge was to change the focus of the election from himself to a miserably failing economy, including its energy-and-environment dimension. By the time the Republican Convention started, Obama had the same problem with the Sarah Palin phenomenon. The McCain campaign would love to have an election that revolves around Obama and Palin. More than ever, Obama needs to turn the election into a referendum on larger matters.

John McCain had no chance of uniting the Republican Convention by himself, let alone of energizing and elating the party's right-wing base. He was the first Republican since 1948 to win the nomination without the support of the party base, and he knew that flag-waving militarism would take him only so far at the convention and in the election campaign. He struck a political gusher by turning to Palin, which electrified the party base and improved McCain's chances with evangelicals, Reagan Democrats, Westerners, hunters, non-feminist women, and perhaps suburban independents.

Palin does not help McCain in his weakest area, his bankruptcy on economy/energy/ecology. Her knowledge base about the world beyond Alaska is worrisome. And it is very much in question whether McCain's Janus-faced convention strategy will play for two months of everyday campaigning. The Republican Convention featured three nights of right-wing bombast for the base, all approved by the candidate, followed by the candidate's assurance that he floats above partisanship and attack politics. That dubious combination smacks of the Fox Network's claim to be "fair and balanced," which no one takes seriously. McCain needs to be careful not to flunk the laugh test.

But his desperate turn to Palin has already paid off enormously. Palin is a huge plus for the Republicans in her current role, dwarfing the contribution that any other running mate would have made. She is charismatic and unlike any nominee of the past. Her strong, spunky, skillfully delivered speech was by far the highlight of the convention. It was also the most sarcastic and mean-spirited acceptance speech in memory at any convention, filled with mocking zingers that apparently are her stock in trade.

Rudy Guliani tossed out lots of red meat, but he was speaking as a primary campaign loser and convention energizer, not a nominee. Mitt Romney won the prize for red meat, declaring that even the Roberts Supreme Court is liberal, like the rest of "liberal Washington." But Romney had his eye on 2012, not this November. Still, envisioning himself as the favorite of the party's culture-warring base, he had in mind Goldwater in 1960 and Reagan in 1976 -- passionate cries from the far right that paid dividends four years later. Somehow Romney has not absorbed that the evangelical right will never rally behind a Mormon, especially him. In the meantime, Palin sailed past Romney, Mike Huckabee, and all other claimants to the favor of the religious right, shoring up a presidential nominee who was never in the running for it.

For the Republican base, Palin's nomination is a realized fantasy and a delicious play to Hillary Clinton's supporters. For the Obama campaign, it is a dangerous distraction from what the election needs to be about. For Democrats, the economy is the key to winning the election. For Republicans, the key is to drive up voter unease with Obama.

On the edge of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Republicans had astonishingly little to say about skyrocketing mortgage foreclosures and job losses. The exception was Fred Thompson, who ridiculed Democrats (with an echo of whiner-hating Phil Gramm) for complaining about economic stress.

The case for throwing out the ruling party is awfully strong; thus the Republicans rarely mentioned George W. Bush or even used the word "Republican." The U.S. economy needs to create at least 100,000 jobs per month to keep up with a growing population. This year the economy has lost jobs in every month, totaling 605,000 lost jobs in 2008 thus far. McCain, mindful of the Phil Gramm fiasco, aptly remarked that the Bush Administration seems not to care about the human suffering behind these figures. But McCain has no plan that differs from Bush or Gramm.

The mortgage meltdown is colossal, totaling $2.5 trillion of lost value thus far. To a large degree it was caused by the Bush Administration's ideologically driven refusal to sensibly regulate the mortgage industry, but McCain has the same ideology. The Bush budget deficits are similarly enormous and self-inflicted, fueled chiefly by Bush's tax cuts for the rich and five years of consequences for invading Iraq. But McCain would make the deficits worse by cutting corporate taxes, eliminating the alternative minimum income tax, ramping up military spending, and making permanent Bush's tax cuts for the upper class.

Keeping Bush's tax cuts would cost the federal treasury $1 trillion over four years. McCain's only idea for cutting the budget deficit is to cut earmarks. If he somehow managed to cut all of them, the savings would total only $19 billion per year. The U.S. spends more than that in Iraq every two months. For McCain to keep a straight face about earmarks, he must explain a running mate who specializes in competing for them. As mayor of tiny Wasilla, Palin lobbied for earmarks totaling $27 million, and in less than two years of governing Alaska she sought nearly $750 million of special federal funding, by far the greatest per capita request by any U.S. governor. Her gas pipeline for Alaska would be a monument to her skill at the earmark game. She boasts of taking on the oil industry, but that was only for a larger share of windfall profits, not to break America's addiction to oil. The oil companies are hoping fervently for a McCain-Palin victory.

McCain once had a sensible position on the Bush tax cuts, which he dropped to make himself competitive in Republican presidential primaries. He once aspired to be known as a green conservative, but on his way to the nomination he deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill that would expand America's wind and solar industries. He once opposed offshore drilling on the ground that the environment matters, but he dropped environmentalism on the way to the nomination. He still opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), savoring his last dissent from Bush-style oil politics, but now he has a running mate who advocates drilling in ANWR.

McCain's alliance with a drill-everywhere enthusiast is apparently a case of one thing leading to another, not a coincidence. One of Palin's chief boosters for the vice-presidential nod was neoconservative pundit and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who touted her brassy toughness and urged McCain operatives not to rule her out. In mid-August, Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes urged McCain to meet with Palin to hear her case for drilling in ANWR. McCain indicated that he was willing to do so. The Weekly Standard, not content to wait for an actual meeting, announced McCain's promise in a splashy article by Hayes featuring a picture of Palin. Now that lightning has struck for Palin, McCain's conversion on ANWR drilling is probably immanent.

That gives the Obama campaign two enormous distractions to overcome--the endless fascination of Obama and the explosion of fascination with Palin. This week, while Palin studies up on the world, the election is mostly about her. A certain amount of time has to be spent highlighting her howlers and extremism. For example, in her convention speech Palin claimed that Obama has never authored a single major law or reform, "not even in the state senate." Either she did not know the truth or did not feel constrained by it. Obama pushed through two major bills in Illinois dealing with racial profiling by police and the recording of interrogations in potential death penalty cases, and in the Senate he has been a leader on ethics reform legislation and intercepting illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction.

But dwelling defensively on Palin and her worldview is a loser for the Democrats, who must summon the discipline and moxie to swing the discussion back to jobs, homes, credit, energy, the environment, and the world.

Democrats should not assume that an electoral windfall awaits when Palin debates Joe Biden. Palin is sharper than George W. Bush in give-and-take exchanges, and the mention of Bush calls up painful memories. In 2000, Al Gore wiped the floor with Bush in the first debate, but the media fixated on Gore's grunts and sighs. In the second debate Bush relied on slogans to cover his ignorance of foreign policy, but it didn't matter; Gore shut down and the story was still about his strangeness. By then Gore's lead was gone and the election was a toss-up.

The debates are enormously important this year, as is the necessity of mounting a focused, essentially populist campaign. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Obama is weak in all four of the crucial swing states that will decide the election---Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida. Hillary beat him badly in Ohio and Pennsylvania, though Biden is now helping Obama in Pennsylvania; he has never competed in Michigan and Florida; and Florida may be out of reach.

In the past eight years nearly all U.S. economic growth went to the top five percent of earners, while the middle class was saved from drowning only by taking on greater debt. But now the debt resort has reached its outer limit, and middle class and working class people are losing their homes and jobs. We need massive new investments in education, health care, and green technology to meet our human and ecological needs and to utilize the productive capacity of the economy. The nations that succeed economically over the next generation will be the ones that successfully convert to alternative forms of energy. The others will decay and choke on their waste.

If Obama can summon his inner populist in a disciplined, passionate, compelling manner, he can win the election and put the U.S. on a better course. If he doesn't, he won't.

--Gary Dorrien is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and professor of religion at Columbia University.

Tags: Barack Obama Democrat Gary Dorrien John McCain Presidential Debates Republican Sarah Palin

By Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on September 9, 2008 2:35 PM | Comments (3)

Mark G. Toulouse: The Religion of the Republic

The conventions are over. Truckloads of trash have found their way to landfills, despite best efforts to "go green." Massive sets of Democratic Doric columns and the 51 foot by 30 foot high-definition screen of the Republicans, composed of 561 Hibino four-millimeter Chroma LED panels and often filled with shots of an American flag flapping in the breeze, have all been returned to wherever it is such things go. Pundits, left and right and indifferent, have offered their takes on anything and everything. Religion and the conventions has been a popular theme.

For the first time in their history, the Democrats seemed to do "religion" right, reflecting Obama's firm belief that all religious voices belong in debates concerning public policy. Appointing a Pentecostal minister as the chief executive officer of the convention brought new religious twists, including a rousing interfaith service on Sunday afternoon and four "faith caucuses" held throughout the convention. Both Republicans and Democrats began and ended each session with prayer from a variety of religious leaders, though the Democrats, as was especially true of their delegations as a whole, held a decided edge in the diversity department. The important speeches all ended with the obligatory "God bless America" or similar ritualistic catch-phrases meant to communicate the piety of our great country. Speeches were carefully crafted to include meaningful religious references where appropriate, but unplanned references crept in here and there. In addition to the two references to God scripted in his VP acceptance speech, Joe Biden added four impromptu, colloquial, perhaps even profane references in actual delivery (not quite the pious references Democrats had in mind), as in "God, I wish that my dad was here tonight." Family values got their pitch as well, as both parties highlighted (exploited?) the children, spouses, and parents of their candidates.

Democrats hope their efforts to take faith seriously will close the perceived "God gap" between the political parties. A Pew Forum poll released the week before Denver indicates that Obama has made some progress in closing the gap. Thirty-eight percent of Americans (it was 26 percent just two years ago) find the Democrats generally friendly toward religion. But they are still behind the 52 percent of Americans who see the Republicans that way. If Democrats can pick up a few percentage points among white Catholics and evangelicals, the election would be much harder for Republicans to win in November.

To be honest, I'm less interested in these kinds of analyses of religion and the conventions than I am in how the conventions actually demonstrated a religious vision of America and its role in the world. This slant on religion and the political parties has been largely ignored by most. In what ways did the conventions reveal how parties and candidates think about America religiously, something Sidney Mead described as "the religion of the Republic"? Mead, an American religious historian who died in 1999, argued in his book THE LIVELY EXPERIMENT that America itself possessed a transcendent and universal religion that is "articulated in terms of the destiny of America, under God, to be fulfilled by perfecting the democratic way of life for the example and betterment of all mankind." These conventions demonstrated well that American civil religion, or the religion of the Republic, still moves many Americans to convention ecstasy, including Americans who claim to take Christian faith, or other traditional faiths, so seriously.

For the Democrats, signs proclaimed a commitment to "change you can believe in." But the theme of the convention consistently emphasized a need to renew the "promise of America." America is the one "glorious nation" under God "where anyone who works hard enough can make the most of their God-given potential." "This," proclaimed New York Governor David Paterson, "is the promise of America." Throughout, Democratic leaders sounded the theme that the essential promise of America (and therefore, the country's mission) is threatened by the fiasco of the last eight years of Republican leadership. From states like Missouri, Iowa, West Virginia, and others the convention heard speeches emphasizing how hardworking people have survived the challenges of life to make it, and how the past decade has threatened to take away their hopes at keeping their slice of the "American dream" alive. In this way, the Democrats appealed to the self-interest of every American. They spoke of an America focused on individual accomplishment and advancement. Hillary Clinton hammered the theme well: "I ran for President to renew the promise of America. To rebuild the middle class and sustain the American Dream. . . .We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend of American confidence and optimism . . . who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit there are no limits to what is possible in America." Bill Clinton echoed these phrases with his own as he stressed that the "American Dream is under siege at home."

In his inspiring address, Obama spoke of his parents who believed in an America where "their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to." "It is that promise that has always set this country apart -- that through hard work and sacrifice each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well." The mission of America, for Democrats, is to keep "the American promise alive." Thus, if threatened from the outside, Democrats can and will take the military actions necessary to secure the American future, to keep America "that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future." In other words, America is the great example for the world and must be protected, but its promise must never be abused or misused. Bill Clinton spoke a one-liner that said it best: "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power." Obama summarized "the promise of America -- the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper. . . . Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility -- that's the essence of America's promise." Then, continuing his use of biblical allusions to apply to Americans, Obama closed his speech with "Let us keep that promise -- that American promise -- and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess." Is he talking of the hope Christians have in Christ? No, here the hope is the one that all Americans share in the promise of America -- the hope that we can succeed, have a good life, and teach the world how to live by our example.

The Republican "religion of the Republic" stressed other commitments. While the Democrats emphasized the disastrous economy and the loss of America's standing as example across the world, the Republicans emphasized placing "Country First." While they also sounded well the note that all Americans should prosper, they emphasized that Obama was not tough enough to insure America's safety. He would, warned Mike Huckabee, "continue to give madmen the benefit of the doubt." Fred Thompson told the convention that John McCain would be the kind of president "who feels no need to apologize for the United States of America." Republicans believe in an America whose mission is threatened more by external forces than internal economic problems. "Our country is calling," Thompson reminded listeners. President Bush emphasized the "dangerous world" we live in and the need for a president who will protect America by staying "on the offense [and] stop attacks before they happen." Rudy Giuliani touted McCain as the "man who believes in serving a cause greater than self-interest [then, going off-script] and that cause is the United States of America -- America comes first!" McCain's address to the convention offered a kind of religious testimony. In moving terms people often use when talking of their experiences of God, he said that the prison in Hanoi changed him: "I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's."

In the well-established tradition of President Bush and any self-respecting religion, Republicans spoke often of good and evil and America's representation of the good in the world. Romney said it clearly: "Republicans believe that there is good and evil in the world. . . John McCain hit the nail on the head: radical violent Islam is evil, and he will defeat it!" In facing the threat posed by radical Islam and all other evils, John McCain and Sarah Palin will "keep America as it has always been -- the hope of the world." This Republican hope for the world does not rest in the American example of living freely, but rather in its proactive expansion of freedom across the world. Republicans are, Giuliani exclaimed, the party that "believes unapologetically in America's essential greatness." Palin attacked Obama as one who "wants to forfeit" in Iraq and is "worried that someone won't read [al Qaeda] their rights." But McCain possesses "the special confidence of those who have seen evil, and seen how evil is overcome." Though she did not do so at the convention, she told ministry students meeting at her former church in Anchorage that American troops in Iraq are serving in a "task that is from God." In the Republican understanding of the religion of the Republic, little seems to separate America and expansion of freedom from good, and the threats to these from evil. While McCain's speech was much more subdued than Palin's and underscored that government should "make sure you have more choices to make for yourself," he claimed to "know how the world works" and to "know the good and the evil in it." Where Democrats are running to renew the promise of America and its example, Republicans are running, in McCain's words, "to keep the country I love safe," and to "see the threats to peace and liberty in our time clearly and face them."

These are two very different versions of the religion of the Republic. One emphasizes the life of the ordinary American and the divine right existing in the promise of America to fulfill all God-given potential. It is largely a religion aimed at self-interest. As Hillary Clinton said, "it comes down to you -- the American people, your lives, and your children's futures." In this version, America serves as an example of freedom to the world, the nation where human beings can thrive and succeed and live the life that God intended them to live in harmony and peace with one another -- a nation that models what God intends for all nations. Americans can fight external enemies, if need be, to preserve the promise of the nation, but they are not proactively looking for a fight. No word about how the American drive for success, even at the individual level, affects the rest of the world, or how the American freedom to consume impacts resources for everyone else.

The other version highlights evil in the world and is confident that America is the divine agent called to fight it, a nation on the offensive. Here the nation is the church, the place where God is present and active in mission, but it is clearly the nation, on God's behalf, that defeats evil and brings freedom and democracy, by any means necessary, to the rest of the world. Like the Democrats, Republicans can also quote the Bible, as President Bush did at Ellis Island on the first anniversary of 9/11 when he said, "This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. May God bless America." Without acknowledging it, President Bush used John 1:4, a passage describing the Word of God, in whom "was life, and the life was the light of all people," to refer to the hope of America and its role as a light to the nations. This messianic, and very religious, understanding of America contains profound, and usually tragic, implications for all other peoples and nations in the world.

So what are good people of faith to do with these versions of the religion of the Republic? Of the two versions, I'm more drawn to the former than the latter, to an understanding of example rather than imperial mission. But from a Christian perspective I am put off by its constant appeal to self-interest. I genuinely miss some expression of the prophetic vision of Jimmy Carter's understanding of the "spiritual malaise" that continues, I think, to affect American life. But others will have to make their own choices. My hope is that they will do so with the full recognition that, while both parties try to convince us that they are hospitable to people of faith, each is actually proposing a competing religious vision to those that the traditional faiths espouse.

-- Mark G. Toulouse is professor of American religious history at Brite Divinity School and the author of GOD IN PUBLIC: FOUR WAYS AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY AND PUBLIC LIFE RELATE (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). Beginning January 1, he will be principal and professor of the history of Christianity at Emmanuel College, Victoria University, in the University of Toronto.

Tags: America Barack Obama Democrat Democratic National Convention Faith John McCain Mark Toulouse Religion Republican Republican National Convention

By Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on September 5, 2008 3:07 PM | Comments (4)

James Penning: Democrats' Faith Initiative -- Success or Failure?

Humorist Will Rogers was famous for joking, "I am a member of no organized political party. I am a Democrat." The 2008 Democratic National Convention demonstrated just how far removed today's Democratic Party is from that of Rogers' day.

Yes, there was the usual on-floor and after-session partying. But this convention was more carefully orchestrated than most Democratic conventions. It was the product of angry and determined professionals -- people tired of eight years of G.O.P. control of the White House.

To a large degree, convention planners succeeded. Speeches by Bill and Hillary Clinton went a long way toward mollifying diehard Hillary supporters and creating a sense of party unity. The spectacular appearance of Obama in an outdoor stadium before 70,000 adoring supporters was a political master-stroke. All of the speakers were well-coiffed and well-prepared for their pre-established roles. Democrats left the convention with good reason to expect a smashing victory in November.

On the other hand, the Democratic Convention may have left some party supporters longing for the good old days. To be sure, no one wanted a return to the chaos of 1968. But 2008 seemed to lack the authenticity of past conventions. Is Michelle Obama really the middle-class housewife portrayed in her speech? Have the Clintons really made peace with Obama? Can Obama, with his appeals to voter self-interest, truly be as inspirational as John F. Kennedy, with his appeals to altruism and self-sacrifice?

The Democrats' authenticity issues were starkly illustrated by their valiant but controversial faith initiatives at the convention. They did their best to remove the party's anti-faith image. Democrats organized "faith concerns" meetings led by Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Obama selected Catholic layman Joe Biden as his running mate. Nancy Pelosi presented her interpretation of Catholic abortion policy on Meet the Press. Speakers made use of religious rhetoric.

Yet nagging doubts about the Democrats' seemingly newfound commitment to religion remained, especially among the conservative evangelical voters who are so crucial to electoral success, particularly in southern states. One reason is that, despite the welter of news stories about the emerging evangelical "center" with a social justice agenda, Democrats differ strongly with evangelicals on the two issues that continue to matter most to Protestant (and Catholic) conservatives -- abortion and gay rights.

Efforts to downplay or explain away these differences proved difficult and even embarrassing, as when the Archbishop of Washington took sharp issue with Nancy Pelosi's interpretation of Catholic theology. Prominent black and Jewish leaders challenged the party on issues ranging from abortion to school choice. And Cameron Strang, founder of RELEVANT, a Christian magazine for twenty-somethings, embarrassed party leaders by refusing to give the closing benediction on the first day of the convention.

So how should one evaluate the success or failure of the Democrats' faith initiative? On the negative side, the efforts seemed strained and unlikely to convince religious conservatives to vote for Obama. On the other hand, the Democrats do not need to win most of the conservative evangelical vote to win in 2008; they simply need to erode G.O.P. support among group members. In that, they may have succeeded.

Some conservative evangelicals may give Democrats grudging credit for addressing religious issues, even if done in a somewhat clumsy fashion. More moderate evangelicals may, to some extent, be attracted by Democratic efforts to appeal to the strong social justice tradition of American Protestantism. But perhaps even more important, particularly in the long run, may be the Democrats' efforts to appeal to growing nontraditional religious groups, such as Muslims, as well as to social justice-oriented mainline Protestants.

John McCain's selection of culturally conservative Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate may indeed reduce the numbers of evangelical defectors in 2008. But, in the longer term, the
Democrats' newfound religion may work to the party's advantage, provided that voters can be convinced the party's religious appeals are genuine and not a cynical ploy to attract "the faithful."

-- James M. Penning is director of the Center for Social Research and professor of political science at Calvin College.

Tags: Barack Obama Conservative Democrat Democratic National Convention Democratic Party Evangelicals Faith Initiative GOP James M. Penning John McCain Sarah Palin

By Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on September 2, 2008 1:47 PM | Comments (0)

Hillary Clinton: Speeches Past and Present

Address to United Methodist Church General Conference
April 24, 1996

Then First Lady Hillary Clinton told the United Methodist General Conference in 1996 that her Methodist minister and the church's lay leaders taught her to apply her personal faith to her public life. She said Jesus' teachings and the church's Social Principles prodded her to fight for health care for uninsured children and other policies that "enable each child to have a chance to fulfill his or her God-given potential." (Video courtesy of United Methodist Church)

Selma Commemoration
March 4, 2007

When she spoke at First Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama during ceremonies to commemorate the 1965 Selma voting rights march, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton suggested that the health care issue is part of a modern-day civil rights movement and that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would have fought for it.

Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's Consultation on Conscience
April 17, 2007

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton describes universal health care coverage as a moral obligation during a conference with Jewish religious leaders.

Watch excerpts from all three speeches in the video below: