Free Republic

In 2008, Barack Obama took aim at the "pew gap," the overwhelming Republican edge among voters who regularly attend church. The Democratic presidential nominee came nowhere near closing it, but he didn't have to. He just needed an extra percentage point or two among traditional GOP constituents, and he got it. According to exit polls, the effort paid off. Obama made gains over the 2004 nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, with voters who attend religious services more than once a week, 43 percent to 35 percent. Obama also won 26 percent of the evangelical vote, compared with 21 percent for...

In a shocking interview yesterday on the Sean Hannity Radio Show, author Ed Klein said Barack Obama’s former pastor helped Obama accept Christianity without having to renounce Islam. The Daily Caller reported: Klein also said Wright told him he “made it comfortable” for Obama to accept Christianity without having renounce his “Islamic background,” which Klein said he has on tape. -snip- Klein spoke more on this in a separate interview with NewsMax: Klein says Obama originally sought out Wright to discuss community activism. “Quickly the conversations turned from picking up garbage on the street and getting streetlights put up on...

According to a Pew poll released earlier this month even before Barack Obama went public with his all-out war on the Catholic Church White non-Hispanic Catholics started moving away from the Democrats and toward a Republican self-identification. The quietly released survey, which contains lots of bad news for Democrats, was completed last December by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. What Pew found was as follows. The Democrat identification all Catholics (practicing and non- practicing) had in 2008 is gone. Democrat identification has slipped from 53/37 to 48/43 – again this was BEFORE Obama’s declaration of war. While...

RICHMOND, Va.—There's no shortage of polls underscoring America's sour mood these days. Surveys generally show that 7 in 10 Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction and that most Americans believe their leaders in Washington are doing a poor job. U.S. News led the way in explaining this trend with a recent special report on why Americans think Washington is broken and what can be done about it. If anything, the warning signs are getting gloomier. A new focus group of Republican voters from the Richmond area, conducted last Thursday evening, was a case in point. All...

Howard Dean says Democrats must have faith in their ability to attract religious voters. The former presidential candidate, who will speak at this weekend's Oregon Democratic Convention in Eugene, says his party must do a better job of winning the support of evangelical Christians, who have voted Republican in recent elections. To that end, Dean recently appeared on Pat Robertson's "700 Club." The appearance wasn't without its bumps. Dean had to later apologize to gay-rights leaders for incorrectly stating during the program that the party's platform said "marriage is between a man and a woman." Still, Dean, the chairman of...

At least five million fervent Jews and Christians, most of whom are conservative politically, sat out the election of 2000. There are very disturbing indications that these same citizens of faith have no plans to vote this coming November. Politics is nothing more than the practical application of our most deeply held religious convictions. Any passionately held belief must surely translate into some specifi c practical policy that would further that belief. Why would so many otherwise patriotic and law-abiding citizens avoid the ballot box? It turns out that large numbers of fervent Christian and traditional Jewish conservatives plan not...

AUSTIN – When it comes to presidential politics, not everybody in the Rev. Kyle Childress' East Texas congregation is singing from the same hymnal. "I've got a few people who are yellow-dog Democrats, and I've got a few who are die-hard Republicans, but I've got a whole lot who are open," said Mr. Childress, pastor of Austin Heights Baptist Church in Nacogdoches. "The lines are not as clearly drawn about who's going to vote Republican and Democrat right now as they were four years ago," he said. "They're not as easily labeled as Republicans. I think it's very much up...