Faith Matters in Iowa Print E-mail
By Jesse Lava
Jan. 04, 08 01:48

Since I'm part of the faithy Dem clique, it would be convenient for me to claim that Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses because they were the most overtly religious candidates in the race.  So I won't.  But I do think faith played a factor -- obviously with Huckabee, but in a subtle way with Obama as well.

 

First, the obvious: faith was crucial for Huckabee today.  If you look at the GOP base as a coalition of economic royalists, foreign policy imperialists, and conservative culture warriors, Huckabee has credibility with just one faction: the culture warriors.  He's a Southern Baptist preacher who rails against abortion and gay marriage yet decries the Bush administration's foreign policy as "arrogant" and waxes compassionate on social welfare spending.  He's not getting his votes (or money - what little there is of it) from either the "Nuke their ass, take their gas" crowd or the me-first money changers in the GOP temple.  Huckabee is the pro-life, anti-gay guy.  On the issues, at least, that's the appeal.

 

The role of faith in Obama's victory isn't as overt.  He hasn't been talking about faith much lately over the last few weeks; the message has been all "change" all the time.  And the faith contingent isn't as organized or well-defined on the Democratic side, particularly in a state like Iowa with precious few black voters.  So Obama didn't win because of faith, per se.  But he owes his victory in no small measure to the perception that he can appeal to a wide cross-section of America -- and his well-publicized faith outreach efforts have helped contribute to that perception. 

 

After all, the man has campaigned from the beginning as someone who's comfortable talking about his Christian faith and how it informs his politics.  He made a major faith speech at the 2006 Sojourners conference, participated in Sojourners' presidential forum earlier this year, organized a series of forums about the role of religion in politics, and launched a gospel concert tour to celebrate "faith and family" in South Carolina.  (Set aside the fact that the gospel tour embroiled his campaign in controversy when one of the performers was found to hold anti-gay views; the tour nevertheless reinforced Obama's religious bonafides.)  By the time Iowa rolled around, Obama had established an image as a bridge-builder who can transcend traditional divides between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans.  And faith had something to do with that.

 

I'm not saying faith was the be all end all today.  But it mattered.


LIST OF COMMENTS

1/7. sorry Jesse
Written by pollchecker  | Jan. 04, 08 07:41
While I agree with you that faith mattered in Iowa regarding Huckabee, I beg to disagree with you about Obama.  Statistics show clearly that what pushed Obama over the top was the input of young and independent voters.   I have seen nothing that indicates these new voters were influenced by faith, but more by a desire for change in our country.

2/7. Just one factor
Written by Jesse  | Jan. 04, 08 11:50

My sense of faith's role for Obama is that it was more subtle than something that could be measured in polls -- an A to B equation of "faith influenced my vote," therefore "I voted Obama."  I meant more that Obama's campaigning on faith was one part of an overall strategy to paint him as a post-partisan bridge-builder, and that effort seems to be succeeding.  There were many factors that went into the creation of that image, as well.  Consider race, for example: Obama's mixed-race status clearly burnished his image as a bridge-builder, even though the polls would not likely suggest that people voted for him simply because of his race.


3/7. The problem is....
Written by pollchecker  | Jan. 04, 08 12:14

The problem with Obama is that his support comes from young and new voters.  These voters traditionally do not participate on Election Day in as strong of numbers as their turnout in the primaries. 

This has been statistically proven across the board.  Also, the younger the voter the less likely race is an issue. 

 


4/7. Winner of Iowa Caucus
Written by pollchecker  | Jan. 04, 08 15:36
Didn't Howard Dean win the Iowa caucus in 2004 with the YOUTH and indepent vote?

5/7. No
Written by Jesse  | Jan. 04, 08 16:48

Howard Dean came in a distant third in Iowa.  John Kerry won Iowa; John Edwards placed second.

Obama did win biggest among younger voters, but he still won other groups.


6/7. Faith Vote?
Written by mouse  | Jan. 06, 08 09:21

  I think people underestimate Huckabee when they say he won on the faith Vote. The reality is that he is clearly the best canidate in the GOP. The people spoke, and I agree with them. Guilliani is less a republican than Ron Paul. Fred Thompson should go back to hollywood. Romney has one intent, and that is to sell out American jobs to oversea sweatshops. And McCain has some psycological issues.

  Now Huckabee is far from perfect, so what ? The Republican's are going to lose the election anyways. I mean, I'm listening to Huckabee right now, and his defense of the Bush administration is that there have been no terrorist attacks in the U.S. in six and a half years. Thats saying a lot,  lets see, how many terrorist attacks were there on the U.S. during the Clinton administration. Well, there was one. A domestic attack in Oklahoma. So the track record seems about the same. However, to the credit of the Clinton Administration, they stopped the terrorist threats that were targetting the World trade Center. So it would seem in this respect, the Clinton administration was more succesful in protecting the U.S. from Islamic extremist terrorist attacks, than the Bush administration.

  Now in regards to Obama, I think that he is winning on the youth movement, and thats a good thing. It's time for the Boomer's to step down. lets be honest, the boomers have been ripping the country apart since the sixties.

 


7/7. Edwards Would Lose Badly In a General
Written by stanjz  | Jan. 06, 08 14:04

Did John Edwards help John Kerry win one red state last election? Edwards likeability numbers are less than half Obama's on an ultra conservative show like Bill O'Reilly has. This wasn't one poll, but it is a consistant number from 7/07 to 12/07. Edwards comes across as far less intelligent than Obama. Edwards comes across as vain on camera. That's why the 400 dollar haircut story had so much traction. Obama comfortably beat Edwards in a state with a heavy caucasian population.  The only reason I'm bringing this up is because of peoples fear of racism playing a role in the coming election. But racists need to change, not the people of America!

Edwards whole approach to fixing the myriad of problems facing the country is to break the back of lobbyists. That is only part of the problem. We facing a three dimensional problem with people mistrusting people (Democrats vs Republicans), people mistrusting their government ( tranparency), and governement and people vs corporations.

A large part of the reason that people want to nominate Edwards is that he is caucasian and male. That is a corrupt reason.

Obama can do magic. Besides the youth vote, Barack has the most ardent Republicans defending him at times. Sean Hannity defended Barack when Shelby Steel came on his show and tried to push his book stating “ Barack couldn’t win, because he had to choose between being a bargainer and a challenger.” Mr. O'Reilly said that he thought Sen. Obama was great and that he loved him, and he'd love to have him on the show," Nicholson said. "And then the senator said that he would think about coming on the show after the primaries

 
 
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