Over at Beliefnet.com, our friend Steve Waldman has been — it seems — up all night. Here is his very insightful look at the “Pew gap” factors, which offers an early analysis of the shape of the new religious left-secular left coalition that was formed last night.
President-Elect Obama cut into the vague “God gap” and made a slight improvement in the “Pew gap,” the statistic linking claimed worship attendance to real votes. There is much here to discuss, so keep reading this updated post.
Over at Christianity Today, the ever energetic (and way younger than me) Ted Olsen has created a map to chart the exit poll numbers for evangelical voters. Click here to see his progress reports.
Also, here’s CNN’s exit polling data about how religious voters voted.
Here’s the key chart: Click to see it. The “pew gap” shrank a bit, but the basic structures remained the same. This has the Catholic vote divided into two groups, which is simplistic, but that still helps.
So what are we still looking for? Everyone knows that the white evangelicals bit their lips and showed up for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin. That’s old news. The question is whether they showed up in force, as in the past. It seems that the numbers shifted a tiny bit.
Meanwhile, this whole night was about (a) the size of the African-American turnout and (b) the size of the various Catholic votes. It will be interesting to see how the black vote for Obama contrasts with the black vote on, oh, the gay-marriage bans in places like Florida and California.
On those all-important Catholic votes (way, way plural), superblogger Amy Welborn has an open thread up and running and you can check there for the collected wisdom of her readers.
Meanwhile, the chosen priest of the mainstream press — Father Thomas J. Reese of Georgetown — has delivered a very simplistic benediction over at “OnFaith” that attempts to wish away the reality of the Catholic votes (again, plural). Check this out, since it attempts to hide one of the major stories of the day:
Catholic voters ignored the instructions of a group of vocal bishops and delivered 54% of their vote for Barack Obama as president of the United States. These bishops, led by Archbishops Charles Chaput and Raymond Burke, argued that abortion was the most important issue in the election and that no other issues outweighed it. As a result, they argued, Catholics could not vote for a pro-choice candidate.
Although these bishops were a minority of the U.S. bishops, they received much attention in the media because other bishops kept silent or simply referred people to their 2007 document, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. The silence of the majority gave the impression that the vocal bishops were speaking for all the bishops.
Some media outlets estimated the number of vocal anti-Obama bishops at 50 or more. I do not trust these numbers.
That is the definitive Catholic left statement, right there. For the list of 100-plus U.S. bishops releasing statements defending Catholic teachings on abortion, in the context of the election, click here.
Where would be the best place to keep tabs on other reactions over on the Catholic left? Any suggestions? How about the religious left in general? Surely there was a George Soros-funded operation that ran an election-night blog on the success of the religious left?
Like I said up top, Waldman has been watching the exit polls like a hawk and he has this interesting piece up already on the solid churchgoers vs. the “occassionals” who sort of go to church. That’s where the Catholic vote will get really interesting, in terms of looking toward long-term conflict between American Catholics and pro-Vatican Catholics. Keep watching that weblog.
At the “Spiritual Politics” weblog over at Trinity College, veteran Mark Silk has already pulled out some of the numbers on the Jewish vote and what did he find? Yada, yada. Business as usual.
Send me some additional links and I will try to updating this, heading on into the morning after.
While you are at it, you will probably want to bookmark this link over at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, where I expect a boatload of survey numbers before dawn or shortly thereafter. I want a hologram of John Green and I want it now!
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Comments (12) |
November 5, 2008, at 11:16 am
“Although these bishops were a minority of the U.S. bishops”
Well, I’ve seen the number of bishops put at 110, and if there are around 300 active U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, that’s about one-third of the episcopate who spoke out on this.
Yes, that’s a minority, but a hefty one: if one-third of the bishops had thrown their support behind, say, same-sex marriage, what’s the betting but that Fr. Reese would have hailed that as evidence of overwhelming support for change?
November 5, 2008, at 11:36 am
The link to the How Obama Did it Beliefnet page is very interesting. Emphasizing his personal faith, the rise of the religious left, abortion reduction and Biden are all cited there.
President-Elect Obama’s victory speech reiterated something which I think is very important: I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
November 5, 2008, at 3:50 pm
There are some interesting results at the Pew Forum site. Basically Obama did better amongst all categories. But one item I saw interested me:
I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion about the causes of this change.
November 5, 2008, at 3:57 pm
tmatt:
You said:
Could you find some other way of differentiating among Catholics? It sounds like loyal Catholics are anti-American with an allegience to a foreign government - exactly what the Nativists and NoNothings were saying about Catholics in the 1800s.
You do realize that Vatican City is a sovereign state that has nothing to do with determining Catholic ethics, right? I know that you are using “Vatican” as short-hand for the Pope as leader of the Church, but it can also be perceived as short-hand for the Pope as sovereign of a foreign country to those who don’t like us very much.
And describing Catholics who would vote for a pro-choice candidate as “American Catholics” is questioning the patriotism of those who would not. Or so it seems.
November 5, 2008, at 4:09 pm
This is a tangent and something that was the primary subject of a different post, but let me make a pitch for using the term “committed Catholics” instead of “pro-Vatican Catholics.” The latter term suggests that within the Church there are groups that are distinguished by their allegience to the Vatican as an institution. But what distinguishes different types of Catholics is not their devotion the Vatican as an institution but, rather, their level of commitment to the teachings of the Catholic Church. The term “committed Catholics” captures the essence of the group that the term “pro-Vatican Catholics” is aimed at: those Catholics who are committed to Catholicism and its teachings. This group is not always entirely pleased with the Vatican as an institution; what defines the group is a commitment to live life according to the teachings of the Church.
November 5, 2008, at 4:15 pm
I posted my previous comment before I saw Julia’s; we both are reacting to the same thing and I agree with Julia’s point. I consider myself a “committed Catholic.” But I feel no allegiance to the Vatican, and one reason, among others, that I would never describe myself as “pro-Vatican” is that, as Julia notes, it has overtones of pledging allegiance to a foreign state.
November 5, 2008, at 6:00 pm
Dan, the problem with “committed Catholic”, as has been demonstrated before on blog posts (e.g. Jenna Jameson), is that it is often used indiscriminately and often to describe precisely the opposite type of Catholic believer that you are describing.
I’m not sure what a better label should be, but just wanted to point out the problem of using “committed Catholic” for the position you describe.
November 5, 2008, at 8:04 pm
The snark in pro-Vatican is intentional.
What I mean, of course, is that these people are pro-Catholic doctrine, as interpreted by Rome.
The American Catholics are, well, American Catholics, with the doctrine interpreted by all kinds of things, from their priest to their own opinions to the editorial page of the New York Times.
So, any other nominations? Committed is gone. The MSM already uses that and it says nothing.
November 5, 2008, at 10:26 pm
Aren’t Catholics who are pro-Catholic doctrine as interpreted by “Rome” also Americans?
November 5, 2008, at 10:28 pm
tmatt:
What would you say to dividing Orthodox into
1)pro-Istanbul/Athens/Moscow/Ruthenian/Ukranian Orthodox, and
2) American Orthodox
November 6, 2008, at 11:51 am
A number of networks held off on calling the winner in a number of states because there were such wide discrepencies
between what exit polls were showing and the actual vote coming in in a number of key precincts. Barrone on Fox talked about this a lot. I know everyone in my large voting and Catholic family refused to answer any exit polls. Part of the reason was our contempt for the way the MSM spent 8 years smearing Bush and then the last year cheerleading for Obama and wanted nothing to do with their corrupt enterprise.
But now in the post-election analysis everyone seems to be taking the exit polls as Gospel and totally accurate.
Why????? Has someone gone and weeded out somehow the precincts where the exit tallies were badly askew when compared to the actual vote??? If so, I have seen no mention of it in what I have been able to look at.
November 7, 2008, at 1:44 pm
OK, if “committed Catholic” is gone (I’ll take everyone’s word for it), how about: “Protestant Catholics” (for Catholics who invent their own Catholicism) and “Catholic Catholics” (for Catholics who don’t)? Tmatt refers to Catholic doctrine “as interpreted by Rome.” Is there some other Magisterium of which I am not aware?