Opinion > Politics
After Obama: Why Catholics should open a ‘second front’ in the Democratic Party
I have a commentary in this week’s National Catholic Register entitled “What Now? Will New Voters Refashion the Democratic Party?” I argue that the election had a silver lining for Catholics: the same voters who turned out in large numbers for Obama—blacks and other minorities—voted strongly for California’s Proposition… READ MORE >
Opinion > Politics
Sarah Palin Meets Woody Allen, Across the Great Divide
If you’re feeling down about the ever-widening gap between blue-state and red-state America (and the even wider gap between blue and red Catholics), you can find hope in Sarah Palin. Ironically, the woman who’s been blamed for single-handedly re-igniting the culture wars is showing signs that she can appeal across the cultural divide.… READ MORE >
Opinion > Politics
Politics and Words
Image Journal’s website features a blog by Brian Volck on the slippery nature of words; more specifically, the language of this election season, and key words like “change.” Both parties claim to be the agents of change. What does it mean? How does a word or expression change in a given context? In politics, are words used… READ MORE >
Opinion > Politics
The Democrats are Blowing the Election—and the Catholic Vote
The best thing about how the Democratic Party is kicking away what should be an easy victory in the November presidential election is that it might force them to finally reassess their support for abortion and gay marriage, positions that are unpopular with working class voters, their natural constituency. A subplot here is how the Dems were… READ MORE >
News > Politics
Obama’s Problem: Where’s the Change?
John McCain has criticized his own party's failures and gone against Republican orthodoxy. Has Barack Obama ever gone against his party's line? He "talks a lot about finding ways to move beyond the bloody battlegrounds of the 'culture wars' in America; the urgent need to establish consensus on the emotive issue of abortion," without ever making a concession to pro-lifers. "Politician Obama's support for abortion rights is the most extreme of any Democratic senator... The fact is that a vote for Mr Obama demands uncritical subservience to the irrational, anti-empirical proposition that the past holds no clues about the future, that promise is wholly detached from experience." READ MORE >
Opinion > Politics
David Brooks explains the Republican Party’s Catholic problem
In a NY Times column today called “The Social Animal,” David Brooks pinpoints exactly why so many Catholics hold their noses every four years as they vote Republican for president merely because of the party’s stance against abortion and gay marriage. As any Catholic who’s watched a Republican convention knows, the GOP… READ MORE >
Opinion > Politics
Pro-Life vs. Family Values? Is Newsweek’s Jacob Weisberg promoting eugenics?
The culture war is back, stronger than ever, with the liberal media completely flummoxed over how to handle Sarah Palin. But what’s really thrown them is Bristol Palin’s unwed teen pregnancy, and the Republican Party’s surprisingly warm-hearted, non-judgemental response to it. How else to explain Jacob Weisberg’s bizarre… READ MORE >
News > Politics
Gloomy Conservatives:The right wing is properly blaming itself for the fix it’s in
“Why, I heard people ask again and again, had the [Christian] leaders not led? Why, if they had as much influence as everyone supposed they did, had they brought us still one more time to the point where everyone had to rehash the rights and the wrongs of voting for ‘the lesser of two evils’? …I have no doubt the leaders of the religious right will be unified in their opposition to this fall's Democratic candidate. I have grave doubts whether those same leaders will any time soon be able to offer credible credentials for positive endorsements of almost any kind.” READ MORE >
News > Politics
Hating Hillary: Getting to the bottom of a cultural trend that has seeped into the church
“…when vigorous political discourse turns into bashing of public figures, it perpetuates a great lie: that they are merely the ideologies and symbols attached to them. When a candidate's ideology is mistaken for his or her personhood, it masks a crucial truth: that each person, no matter their political views, bears God's image and matters deeply to him. While pundits see candidates as punching bags, evangelicals are supposed to see candidates as, well, people. As we ponder how candidates are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made,’ we may haltingly come to realize that the most bold and courageous thing we each could do this election season, no matter who we vote for, is this: Love Hillary.” READ MORE >
News > Politics
Obama: Is it all about him?
“[According to Michelle Obama,] America’s illness goes far beyond a flawed political process: “Barack knows that at some level there’s a hole in our souls.” But they can be repaired… ‘Barack Obama... is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.' So we don’t have to work to improve our souls. Our broken souls can be fixed — by our voting for Barack Obama.” READ MORE >
News > Politics
Who will Catholics vote for in November—Obama or McCain?
“Sorry to tell you this, Sen. McCain, but a good number of the Catholics I know are not certain to light candles at the Republican political altar. Some of us who rode McCain's Straight Talk Express before the Republican commitment to a balanced budget put us on track toward a $400 billion deficit appreciate his confessed desire to redeem himself as a faithful conservative. But there are suspicions. After all, hanging out with Joe Lieberman and Russ Feingold comes well within the Latin canon: Similes similibus gaudent. Pares cum paribus facile congregantur—birds of a feather flock together.” READ MORE >
News > Politics
Young voters will help, but can’t elect, Obama
"If [Obama] wins his party’s nomination, the 46-year-old stands a shot against the 72-year-old John McCain. Even so, Obama would need to find a bloc of voters outside his coalition of blacks and yuppies. But the history of the post-1968 Democratic party suggests that Obama would struggle in wooing a new constituency. The national party has pursued the votes of young people, minorities, and liberated women first and foremost — and those of the white working class and Catholics second, if at all. As a result, only two of the party’s last seven presidential nominees have won. Obama could be the third winner, but he will need more than hope." READ MORE >
News > Politics
Evangelical Leader James Dobson Endorses Mike Huckabee
"His record on the institution of the family and other conservative issues makes his candidacy a matter of conscience and concern for me... His unwavering positions on the social issues, notably the institution of marriage, the importance of faith and the sanctity of human life, resonate deeply with me and with many others." READ MORE >
News > Politics
Weird Times, Weirder Election
"In this crazy year, the election may finally come down to how many Democrats — scared that they don’t know enough about Obama, or know too much about the Clintons — will vote for a veteran pro like McCain. Or, on the flip side, how many “true” conservatives will stay home in November to ensure that a liberal wins the White House just to prove their purity." READ MORE >
News > Politics
Can McCain Win Over Right-Wingers?
"For McCain's critics on the right, the OSI funding implicates the Arizona senator in all the progressive and libertarian causes that the Soros foundation has supported -- including reproductive rights, drug law and sentencing reform, public financing of elections and abolition of the death penalty, to give a short list. If that sounds like guilt by association, McCarthy style, that kind of thinking is hardly alien to Limbaugh, Coulter and their fans." READ MORE >
News > Politics
Political Split Between Evangelicals and Their Spokesmen
“Should Obama earn the Democratic nomination, his message of hope and unity will appeal to young evangelicals… The successes of Huckabee and McCain show that evangelicals are open to a broader policy agenda… But their moderate economic policies also strain a delicate if formerly successful platform. ‘One conclusion that you could draw is a lot evangelicals are ready to move beyond President Bush…’” READ MORE >
News > Politics
Obama vulnerable in November because of liberal policies
“The one thing that will keep Obama's appeal from translating into widespread support among Republicans is that he is, on almost every issue, a conventional liberal... politics is finally and fundamentally about ideas and philosophy… If he wanted to demonstrate his independence from liberal orthodoxy he could come out in favor of school choice for low-income families, which would both help poor families and demonstrate support for some of the best faith-based institutions in America: urban parochial schools. If Obama becomes the Democratic nominee and fails to take steps such as this, his liberal views will be his greatest vulnerability.” READ MORE >
News > Politics
Why liberal bloggers don’t love Obama
“Obama is, in some respects, the ideal candidate of the Yearly Kos contingent--an insurgent who opposed the Iraq war, generated grassroots enthusiasm, and built a massive online fund-raising apparatus. But the bloggers who champion these things have not all rallied around Obama… Obama's readiness to embrace conservatives and chastise his allies on the left have caused many bloggers to wonder how strongly he would fight for liberal priorities as president.” READ MORE >
Magazine > Politics
Why I Love Obama
(...But I Won't Vote for Him.) READ MORE >
News > Politics
Is Political Bias Backfiring on Fox News?
"Fox News continues to embarrass itself with a type of journalism that nobody else in the industry would dare call professional… An all-out Fox News marketing blitz to label Giuliani ‘America's Mayor’ never got traction… In the meantime, the rise of Sen. John McCain and especially Mike Huckabee, with his populist streak, has caused all sorts of consternation at Fox News… And don't even mention Ron Paul's name to the folks at Fox News, who have stepped outside their role as journalists to try to kneecap the antiwar GOP candidate." READ MORE >
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