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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.
As we head into the election-day coverage, let’s all flash back to the story line of the 2000 and 2004 elections that was supposed to fade, seriously, in this election. I refer, of course, to The Pew Gap.
Yesterday, I made a quick reference to a religion story that has not dominated campaign coverage, to the say the least. That story is Roman Catholic bishops speaking out in defense of their church’s teaching in response to statements from pro-choice Catholic politicians and in response to statements from pro-choice candidates in general. Now there have been articles, most notably after the comments made by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Joe Biden. But I had no idea just how widespread the phenomenon was.
Compared to the primary election, the subject of the religion and faith of Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama’s has largely been absent from the pages of Midwestern newspapers and magazines. Some of this can be justified by the fact that the Midwest is reeling in an economic slump that is seeing people threatened with the loss of their jobs and homes and the collapse of the auto industry and other manufacturing industries that make up a substantial portion of the region’s economy. People want to hear the candidates talk about their economic plans more than their spiritual backgrounds.
Usually I groan when I come across an Associated Press piece marked “analysis.” I like my AP reporters to report, not analyze. But in a year like this, when reporters have dropped most pretense of reporting in favor of overtly playing politics, it’s actually kind of a breath of fresh air to have something clearly identified as analysis. On this note, if media outlets’ horribly misnamed “fact checks” could go the way of the Dodo bird, I’d be most happy.
Congratulations are in order for Jessica Rowley, a St. Louis woman on the verge of giving birth to her first child. The pregnancy was deemed newsworthy by a St. Louis alternative paper called the Riverfront Times:
The big story in Friday’s Washington Post was headlined “God, Country and McCain.” The article was less on those three subjects and more an attempt to demonstrate the current mindset of young conservative evangelical Republicans on the eve of what could be for many of them their first electoral defeat as active voters.
