Faith and religion are getting big play in this years presidential campaign, and the God-o-Meter is waving its arm wildly to keep up with the divine statements of the Republican and Democratic candidates.
On blog.beliefnet.com/godometer, blogger Dan Gilgoff has been carefully monitoring what the nine Republicans and eight Democrats have been pontificating in the realm of God talk. (Two drop-outs, Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo, remain on it). Regularly the candidates, spending most of their time in Iowa and New Hampshire, have creatively found ways to link public issues with faith and God. And Gilgoff, Beliefnets politics editor and a former correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, takes those remarks to bump the politicians up or down on his rotating God-o-Meter.
Gilgoff has written voluminously on what all the candidates have been saying that touches on religion. Much of what he uses is pulled from the nations media. With each round of remarks, he determines whether candidates are moving up or down.
A profile of Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., (currently at 5 after previously being at 3 with 10 being hot) tells how he was profiled in the Christian Science Monitor and talked extensively on Catholicisms influences on his life. The Catholic Church, he said, is his spiritual home but he has never worn his faith on his sleeve. He is fully comfortable that is wife, Jackie Clegg, is a member Mormon.
Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is said to have told an Iowa audience that the state must preserve its threatened first-in-the nation caucus status for constitutional reasons related to the Lord. Asked Gilgoff, Will Richardson get political points for according the Hawkeye State divine purpose? He suggested it might be taken, instead, by Iowans as invoking religion just for political purposes.
A report is cited that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a member of the United Church of Christ, has received more donations from clergy than any candidate of either party. In fact, its three times more than for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Fifty-six percent of all funds coming from clergy and staffers are going this year to Democrats, compared to 59 percent from Republicans five years ago. Obamas God-o-Meter rating had moved from a 7 to 8.
Theres Republican hopeful Duncan Hunter, sitting on a 6, saying he would never, never, never abandon Israel if he were president. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a leading Republican candidate, has been locked at a 10 for a while, indicating steady work mixing faith and politics. Gilgoffs latest renderings on Huckabee, a Southern Baptist pastor, notes how Huckabees campaign web site is not deleting a lot of anti-Mormon states posted by supporters. Like this one: “Finally,” Suzanne Hultquist wrote in a blog post with four exclamation points. Mike Huckabee has the courage to tell the world [who does not already know] what Mormons truly believe about Jesus. Thank you.”Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson was cited for overstating the endorsement he got from a couple of pastors. The two from the Wesleyan Center for Strategic Studies apparently represent a group so small, it speaks for no one, Gilgoff quoted an Arkansas newspaper blog: Standing beside the Rev. Phillip Knight and the Rev. Benny Tate, the respective president and vice president of the Congregational Methodist Church, Thompson said Friday, I am honored and blessed to receive the endorsement of these two men who represent 40 million people around the nation from 42 different Wesleyan denominations. That remark helped take Thompsons God-o-meter reading from 5 to 4.Republican candidates Ron Paul used a statement from writer Sinclair Lewis that when fascism comes to this country it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross. Paul added, I dont know if thats a fair assessment or not. But you wonder about using a cross like hes (Huckabee) the only Christian or implying that subtly. Gilgoff said Paul was unwise to use Lewis statement. Either way, God-o-Meter is guessing that linking the cross with fascism will be unpopular in many Christian circles, lowering Paul’s reading, the blogger said.Im a former Iowan who attended the second and third presidential caucuses (1976 and 1980), but I remember little about them, nor the procedure. I was living out of state when they started in 1972. At the time, we hardly thought this new way of showing our interest in presidential candidates would become so influential. As for Sinclair Lewis, the Nobel Prize author, it was 100 years ago this year (1908) when he worked briefly at the Waterloo Daily Courier, where I got my daily newspaper start in 1972. Its said Lewis, 27, fresh out of Yale
University, got his reporter job at the Courier, but by summers end he was gone. He reportedly didnt get along with his editors and was fired. Lewis reportedly once complained, “Gee! Newspaper work is plumb hard.”