Election results are being analyzed. What are some of the features of the election results that you find significant or interesting?
We are told that 88% of evangelical Christians voted for McCain/Palin. On the other hand, 54% of Catholics supported Obama/Biden, despite the fact that Obama voted several times in the Illinois senate to let babies die, who were born despite botched abortions. Why is abortion the only choice "pro-choicers" make? Hispanics voted 2 to 1 for Obama over McCain. That might explain the Catholic vote.
Both North Carolina and Indiana went for Obama, albeit by slim margins. Al Franken may yet win in Minnesota, if election officials keep finding boxes of Democratic votes in the trunks of their cars. We are getting close to the sixty votes in the Senate needed to stop Republicans from filibustering.
The cult of Obama was quite a phenomenon in this year's election.
2 comments:
Hispanics probably voted for Obama because the Repulicans were so anti immigrant (and in such a climate even US citizens are harassed for their papers....you try being a native of Colombia with an Irish last name like my adopted son).
And remember: the bishop's opposition didn't get much press (a mention maybe in church versus wall to wall ads)
Here's a good post about the so-called "Catholic vote":
http://redcardigan.blogspot.com/2008/11/so-called-catholic-vote.html
In brief, a lot of people call themselves Catholic but don't practice their faith, and those tend to discredit polls so that there is no single issue or set of issues that all or even most Catholics hold as non-negotiable. Especially in the northeast and the west coast.
Perhaps "Catholic" is a self-descriptor that people tend to hang on to even when they don't practice their faith, because the Catholic church offers sacraments (infant baptism, first communion, marriage) that even nominal Catholics participate in occasionally. Family pressure (grandparents pleading with their lax children to baptize their babies), social pressure (business contacts through Knights of Columbus), attendance of Catholic schools, etc., keeps people from converting or formally renouncing their Catholic faith, but they're not exactly deeply passionate about practicing their faith either.
I don't mean that as a dig on the validity of other Christian traditions. I'm just saying that to Catholics, our sacraments are not equivalent or interchangeable with those of other Christian communities. We don't receive Communion in other churches, we need priests or deacons to perform baptisms and marriages. Whereas the other Christian communities are much less discriminating. Marriage, baptism, etc. in one Protestant or evangelical church is recognized as perfectly valid in another Protestant or evangelical church. Whereas Catholics have to do these things in Catholic churches, and a certain bare minimum of participation is required, and records are kept.
Among weekly church-going Catholics, the vote was about 55% for McCain. Which is still pretty pathetic, but at least it was a majority.
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