The selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP is by any estimate a very interesting pick. Her pro-life background should help McCain with blue collar Catholic voters generally. I'm starting to feel that this election comes down to who wins Colorado and New Mexico. Perhaps McCain flips New Hampshire. Certainly McCain must "hold serve" on more states than Obama to stay even, and that puts more pressure on him. If Obama gets momentum and starts flipping states like Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, or Florida, it's all over. It is less likely that McCain flips Democratic states like Pennsylvania or Michigan, but it is possible. I think it comes down to Colorado and New Mexico. Can two Westerners keep these GOP states? Can Palin's Catholic roots (she is reportedly a baptized Catholic) help with Hispanic voters in New Mexico? We'll see.
--David Gray directs the New America Foundation's Workforce and Family Program. An attorney and ordained Presbyterian minister, he is a chaplain at American University in Washington, DC.
If BLUE COLLAR CATHOLICS will take note -- Obama's work in the 1980 was for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
When Obama graduated from college, he went to Chicago as a community organizer in Catholic parishes on the South Side. Groups of churches were concerned about their parishioners because many of them were laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago.
They hired Obama to help these stunned people recover and get the services they needed--job training, help with housing and so forth--from the local government.
Obama served the poor for three years, then went to law school.
This truly is the sort of service every college-educated America should perform, in some form or other.
When I read that Americans who identify themselves as Catholics are flocking in great numbers to support the McCain-Palin ticket, I am truly amazed.
I assume that most of these Catholics know of John McCain's allegiance to the radical pastor, John Hagee, the man who branded the Roman Catholic Church "the great whore ... a false cult"; and that, in his latest book, Jerusalem Countdown, Hagee writes: 'The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself."
AND YET ... and yet?
Whatever we can say about crazy, egomaniacal Rev. Jeremiah Wright, we don't see any Obama-Biden people going out now, supporting him, and calling him Moses -- as Senator Joe Lieberman did Hagee – in July 2008.
Senator Lieberman has spent a lot of useful time cozying up to Hagee and Hagee's fundraising efforts to "hasten the return of Jesus Christ."
In February 2008, McCain said he was "very honored" to receive Hagee's endorsement and, when asked about some of Hagee's more twisted views, responded: "all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support." A private citizen is welcome to be that oblivious, but should a presidential candidate be?
And now look what's being reported about Governor Palin's end-of-days-embracing church in the Wall Street Journal and the Times of London, to name just a few reputable news organizations.
Where would our country and our world be today if America's greatest leaders had seen the challenges around them as Biblical signs of the Rapture's approach? In 1776? In 1812? In 1861? In 1941? In the 60s? During the Cold War?
Don't we need leaders like John F. Kennedy, as in his address to Southern Baptist Leaders, who can meet issues of faith forthrightly and intelligently so that they can get our country back to fulfilling its promise instead of trying to serve one religious agenda over another?
I realize many Catholics cheered on the candidacy of George W. Bush. I know because I'm Catholic. But must we continue on so blindly ... when there's so much life all around to tend to? Must we indulge ourselves in thinking that the issue of abortion is the dividing line for all issues that matter to life on Earth?
OBAMA = BETRAYAL
Obama supporters are foolish to think that he will never betray them.
Obama was a close friend of Pastor Wright for TWENTY YEARS.
Obama threw Wright under the bus for personal ambition.
McCain would not betray his country even after 5 years of torture.
You can put lipstick on a traitor, but he's still a traitor.