God-O-Meter

Even if just showing up is 80-percent of success, God-o-Meter was nonetheless surprised that Mike Huckabee won 62-percent support in a straw poll of religious conservatives taken in conjunction with last night’s Values Voters debate (video here) in Florida. Sure, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, and John McCain skipped the debate, calling its relevance…

Who was it that predicted a few weeks ago that a ruling by a Polk County, Iowa judge would turn into a gift for Mitt Romney? Oh, right—that was God-o-Meter! Romney is out with a new radio ad in Iowa rehashing his fight against same-sex marriage as governor of Massachusetts, where the state supreme court…

After trailing him in last month’s Ames straw poll and failing to get anywhere near the media attention, Sam Brownback is still beating up Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, for being insufficiently conservative on social issues. In a release sent out shortly after last night’s Values Voter debate the Brownback camp said Huckabee showed…

Is it just coincidence that John McCain waits till his presidential bid is ailing and till he’s in evangelical-rich and electorally important South Carolina to correct the long-held impression that he’s Episcopal by insisting that he’s Baptist? God-o-Meter says: unlikely. Though McCain has been identified as an Episcopalian for years in the press—he grew up…

With the avalanche of stories about Romney’s so-called Mormon problem, God-o-Meter almost forgot that being an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also has benefits for White House aspirants. After all, Romney has raised more money in Utah than in any other state besides California. And, The Salt Lake Tribune…

In the week since he made his candidacy official, Thompson has forced enough God-o-Meter recalibrations to make its needle sore. After swinging up yesterday, Thompson’s God-o-Meter is down again, for telling reporters he only attends church regularly when in his native Tennessee. “I don’t attend regularly when I’m up there” he said, referring to Northern…

As if God-o-Meter needed more evidence that Iowa—rural, culturally conservative, and home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses—has become a laboratory for new religious organizing techniques by Democratic presidential candidates, it learns that the Obama campaign is in the middle of a 10-day “faith tour” of Iowa. CBN’s David Brody stopped in at one such event,…

So a onetime Baptist preacher is running a long shot campaign for the GOP nomination for president in a crowded field when a TV actor who admits he hardly ever goes to church joins the race. Which one does the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s single largest evangelical denomination, appear to get behind? You guessed…

Even before he declared, aides to Fred Thompson were confident their boss would soon reel in endorsements from a handful of high-profile evangelical leaders. Now that he’s made his candidacy official however, some marquee Christian Right activists, including Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, are backing away from Thompson. The reason: Thompson opposes the Federal…

For Hillary Clinton, competing with Barack Obama for black support means competing largely among black churchgoers, who’ve long been among her husband’s most receptive audiences (remember his ovation-inspiring eulogy at Rosa Parks’s 2005 funeral?). Clinton’s dazzling performance yesterday before a crowed of 2,000 plus at the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. in Myrtle Beach,…

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