Religion and the 2008 election

I am compiling some data regarding special interest voting, religion and the 2008 election. This post serves as an open forum for readers who see polls or data regarding various interest groups (e.g., pro-life, those not favoring gay rights, Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical, etc.). Just add them to the comments section. I will be adding to the post throughout the day and evening.
First up is Christianity Today’s Evangelical vote map. There you can find a compilation by Ted Olson of how the Evangelical vote went from state to state. Looks like the percentage of Evangelical vote is more like the Kerry election than the Clinton years.
Looking at this, I do not see much benefit for McCain to have run on an even more socially conservative platform than he did. He seemed to keep that aspect of the coalition together. And clearly Sarah Palin helped energize that base.
Here is an analysis from Richard Baehr at American Thinker. He looks at the data and says white voters stayed home and minorities voted in record numbers. I have to add that his observation that California, New York and Illinois accounted for the lion’s share of the vote difference between Obama and McCain might say something about how blue those states have become.
And the youth vote…
This article from LifeNews indicates that the Catholic vote went for Obama.
Weekly churchgoers went for Obama a bit more than for Kerry:

Despite heavy religious outreach by Obama, exit poll results suggested white evangelicals voted for John McCain 74 to 25 percent, roughly similar to 2004 results. The gap among weekly churchgoers, however, closed a bit: McCain beat Obama by a 54-44 percent margin, compared to George W. Bush’s 61-39 percent win with the group in 2004.

The New York Times reports gains for Obama over Kerry among younger evangelicals and in important swing states (e.g., CO). My impression is that Obama will have a relatively short window of opportunity to solidify these gains. If he doesn’t deliver on the concerns of the younger set, we may see quite a backlash next time around.

Nov. 5 New York Times Front Page Leaked

Well, I can’t actually verify this but it might look something like this.
NYT
Here is a little better view of it.
I might be done for the night; I am not sure I can watch this. FOX just called VA at 10:41pm for Obama. Virginia.
Jedi mind tricks.
Some GOP people I talk to hope for buyer’s remorse and a resurgence in the mid-term elections in 2010. As a historical parallel, Bill Clinton, in 1992, met immediate problems with his health care initiatives; one wonders if Obama’s pledge to make the Freedom of Choice Act his first legislative priority could be a parallel. There are any number of liberal proposals that Obama would do well to wait to move on if he wants to avoid what happened during the first Clinton term. The Contract with America came along in 1994 and helped revitalize the GOP.

Wendy Button, speechwriter for Obama, supports McCain

As far as I can tell, this is just out this morning. This Daily Beast revelation will be a real test for the MSM; will reporters give this the coverage that Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter received for her comments about Sarah Palin?
Her account starts this way:

So Long, Democrats
by Wendy Button
Wendy Button is a writer in Washington, DC. She has written for Senators John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston as well as other national and international leaders. She received her MFA in writing from Bennington College and is currently writing the CNN Heroes Award Show to air Thanksgiving night.
A speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton on why she’s voting McCain.
Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional.”
When I entered this campaign, it was at the 2006 Edwards staff Christmas party. My nametag read “Millie Worker.” When former Senator John Edwards read it, he laughed and said, “That makes you like my parent.” He went on to say, “Would you please come down to Chapel Hill so we can talk about what’s coming up.” I sat in John and Elizabeth’s living room for two and half hours. I left North Carolina, energized about politics for the first time in months.
I didn’t hear from anyone for three weeks.
When I finally received the official offer, it was the kind of political offer that said, “Go away.” That happens. It’s their campaign and I just assumed that I had been pushed out. The problem was that I had canceled a number of freelance writing jobs because I had assumed that when John said, “Start right away” I would. I needed a job right away and so I took the one in front of me with Senator Barack Obama.
When we first met, Obama and I had a nice conversation about speeches and writing, and at the end of the meeting I handed him a pocket-sized bottle of Grey Poupon mustard so he wouldn’t have to ask staff if it was okay to put it on his hamburger. At the bottom of the bottle was the logo for “The South Beach Diet” and he snapped, “Oh so you read People magazine.” He seemed to think that I was commenting on his bathing suit picture.
I helped with his announcement speech and others. I worked in the Senate when he was in D.C. One day after a hearing on Darfur, we were walking back to the office. I was still hobbling from a very bad ankle injury and in a very kind and gentle way he offered his arm when we approached the stairs. But later in debate preps and phone conversations and meetings, I realized that I had made a mistake. I didn’t belong. No matter how hard I tried, my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

Ms. Button has made a rapid turn based on differences of style and substance:

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.
Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?

And so, she is making a move toward McCain, who Button says is the bipartisan candidate in the election:

We can talk about the wardrobe and make-up even though most people don’t understand the details about Senator Obama’s plan with Iraq. When he says, “all combat troops,” he’s not talking about all troops—it leaves a residual force of as large as 55,000 indefinitely. That’s not ending the war; that’s half a war.
I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.
I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.

This should be interesting…

Colin Powell may endorse Obama

My suspicion is that the McCain knows what is going to happen and they are trying to prevent the news from being a complete surprise.
However, if Powell endorses Obama, the news will push Joe the Plumber out of the news cycle and become the lead for a couple of days.
Bill Kristol predicted this would occur in August but it did not happen.
UPDATE: He did it (sigh)

Wurzelbacher a plant? Not possible, says reporter on the scene

On October 12, Barack Obama held a campaign appearance in Toledo, Ohio. On his way to a planned speech, Obama stopped to do a little door-to-door politicking in the suburban Toledo neighborhood where Joe Wurzelbacher lives. Investigating the suspicion by some that Joe Wurzelbacher was a McCain campaign plant, I called reporter Tom Troy of the Toledo Blade. Tom was covering Obama’s visit to Toledo and was on the scene for the meeting between Obama and Wurzelbacher.
According to Troy, the stop location was known only to the Obama campaign and the Secret Service. Troy said, “Nobody in that neighborhood knew Barack Obama was going to be there.” The press was aware that some kind of unscheduled stop was possible but they did not know where or when it would happen. Said Troy, “It’s not possible for him to be a plant. It was totally unplanned.”
Mr. Troy told me that the motorcade stopped so that Obama could talk to voters in an informal manner. According to Troy, the conversation between Obama and Joe occured “right in front of his [Wurzelbacher’s] house.” Troy said that Joe gave credit to Obama for being willing to stop and talk to people.
I hope that clears things up.
Read Tom Troy’s October 12th article.

Breaking: Joe Wurzelbacher is really Joe Wurzelbacher

Now the U.S. News and World Report has become unhinged.
Bonnie Erbe gives credence to the conspiracy theories about Joe Wurzelbacher – aka, Joe the Plumber. The media is tearing into this guy with a vengence, even questioning his name, because he uses his middle name, something by the way that I do.

Joe the Plumber so loves media attention, he’s drawing pro-Obama bloggers to question his authenticity as an undecided voter:
Joe has been on so many right wing talk shows it appears pretty obvious that this is a coordinated attempt to pull a last second ‘tax and spend’ haymaker. Family Security Matters, a wingnut security policy thinktank, has the first interview with Joe after this Obama encounter. Hmmm. What’s the chance that a group like this gets the first interview with this alleged ‘undecided voter’?
Other blogs say Wurzelbacher may be related to Charles Keating of the Keating Five and that his father is a major Republican donor:
Joe the Plumber, the star of tonight’s debate, may have a very interesting connection to John McCain. In fact, Joe the Plumber (Joe Wurzelbacher) of Cincinnati, Ohio may be related to one Robert Wurzelbacher of Cincinnati, Ohio, who happens to be Charles Keating’s son-in-law. Robert Wurzelbacher was implicated in the Keating 5 scandal, and sentenced to 40 months in prison in 1993. Wurzelbacher is also a huge Republican donor.
Keep watching this story because if it proves true that “Joe the Plumber” is the wealthy, Republican regular the liberal blogs are claiming he is, the McCain campaign could go down as the most corrupt and inept in history.

Read this story from the Toledo Blade which is from the day of when Obama and Joe met. There are many people around and Obama is on the street meeting people. How the McCain forces could set this up is beyond me.

Mr. Obama’s longest conversation was with a man who said afterward that he likes Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president.
Joe Wurzelbacher, 34, a plumber, debated with Senator Obama about his tax plan.
‘I’m being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream,’ Mr. Wurzelbacher said.
Mr. Obama tried to convince him that his plans to give a tax cut to 95 percent of Americans and to raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 would be good for the plumbing business by helping get the economy righted.
‘Pretty good practice’
As Mr. Obama left, he said, ‘I’ve got to go prepare for this debate, but that was pretty good practice.’

This apparently amended article sets the context for Obama’s visit to Springfield Township. He dropped in the neighborhood.

Mr. Obama arrived in Toledo yesterday for the start of three days of intensive preparation for Wednesday’s final presidential debate, but he first made an unscheduled stop in a Springfield Township neighborhood to canvass for votes.
The candidate surprised residents of the working-class Lincoln Green neighborhood off McCord Road when his motorcade made the unannounced stop on the way in from Toledo Express Airport.
Wearing a white shirt, suit trousers, and no tie, Mr. Obama chatted, joked, hugged, posed, and debated for 45 minutes with the folks of Shrewsbury Street who came out of their homes to meet him.
Rachel Jesko, 28, a teacher, was dropping off her friend when she saw the motorcade in the neighborhood.

Another Joe the plumber doubts Obama

I wonder how many plumbers are named Joe. The fellow we always call is named Tom, but I digress.
Here is another plumber named Joe who is backing McCain.

Shanks, an independent voter, said he’s supporting Republican Sen. John McCain, citing the official’s career experience in office as the deciding factor for him.
“I’d just feel more comfortable, confident and safe with McCain,” the plumber said. “McCain’s been there. Obama’s just not that experienced.”
Shanks likened the decision to a homeowner in need of a plumber – would you hire the guy who just got his trade license, he asked, or a seasoned professional?

What a concept.

Debate reactions: Open Forum

I think Joe Wurzelbacher (the Ohio plumber) and Bob Schieffer did well.
The questions were more helpful to voters in making decisions. I think the candidates made the differences a bit clearer. If you want a more centralized federal government and social liberal, vote for Obama. If you want spending discipline and social conservatism, vote for McCain.
Bring it…
NOTE TO READERS: For some reason I cannot figure out, your comments are not being posted. I cannot get to the spam queue either to look for them there. Makes it tough to have an open forum, eh? Try again in a bit, hopefully I can get it worked out…
Let me remind readers about this post about Mr. Wurzelbacher’s interview today with Family Security Matters.