{"id":552,"date":"2008-04-25T15:55:24","date_gmt":"2008-04-25T15:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html"},"modified":"2008-04-25T15:55:24","modified_gmt":"2008-04-25T15:55:24","slug":"why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Why Ray Flynn Backs Clinton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"flynn.jpg\"Raymond Flynn was U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican under President Bill Clinton and, before that, Mayor of Boston. In recent years, the lifelong Democrat has been an advocate for the poor and for social conservative causes, which has sometimes put him at odds with his own party. He backed Mitt Romney for governor of Massachusetts and George W. Bush for president in 2000, telling the Boston Globe, \u201cI didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.” God-o-Meter contacted Flynn after reading a news item that mentioned he appeared at a Pennsylvania event for Hillary Clinton in the run-up to this week\u2019s primary there.<\/em>
\nHow did you come to support Senator Clinton?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m a lifelong Democrat, not that I vote for every Democrat regardless of who their opponent is\u2026. The tradition of the Democratic Party is the party that stood up for working class and poor people. I\u2019m strongly pro-life, I\u2019m pro-family, and pro-poor. I supported George Bush in 2000 for president but I\u2019m supporting Hillary Clinton in this election because I strongly believe that she would be best for the country.
\nYou\u2019ve spent the last several years as a pro-life, anti-gay marriage advocate. How did you reconcile those views with supporting Clinton?<\/strong>
\nI disagree with Senator Clinton on the abortion issue, obviously. I\u2019m strongly pro-life. But in the final analysis I support the person who is best for the country. She has a record of commitment to healthcare for all Americans, I know her values as a Methodist person who believes strongly in her faith\u2026.
\nI strongly support traditional marriage and so does Senator Clinton. There is not one candidate I totally agree with on all the issues. I didn\u2019t\u2019 agree with George Bush on 90-percent of the issues. But I\u2019m not a blindly loyal Democrat or Republican. I vote for what my conscience dictates.
\nDid the Clinton campaign wage a serious effort for your endorsement?<\/strong>
\nNot really. I was the Grand Marshall in the St. Patrick\u2019s Day Parade last year and I met Senator Clinton in New York and she said \u201cI need a good fighter for the poor on my team and I\u2019d appreciate if you help with that.\u201d That was the extent of it.
\nHow involved do you plan to be in her campaign?<\/strong>
\nI would help her as much as I\u2019m able. I was pretty tied up with the Pope\u2019s visit and I do a lot of public speaking. Tomorrow I\u2019m speaking to 2,000 New York City police officers at St. Patrick\u2019s in New York and then I\u2019m heading to Cleveland and speaking to Catholics. I do a lot of speaking to pro-life groups and Catholic groups.
\nDo you mention your support for Senator Clinton at those kinds of events?<\/strong>
\nWhen I\u2019m asked about it privately after the events. But I don\u2019t make those events political.
\nHave you caught flack for supporting Clinton from your pro-life allies?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t work for any group or for the church. I\u2019m my own person. I had more people upset for supporting George Bush. I received a tremendous amount of flack for that.
\nWhat explains the Catholic support for Clinton in Pennsylvania this week, where she won Catholics by two-to-one?<\/strong>
\nI wasn\u2019t surprised. On the issues that are really important to Catholics\u2014health care, children, and families\u2014Clinton has a long record of experience. If it weren\u2019t for the abortion issue I think she would have received an even greater of percentage of Catholics voting for her.
\nHow are the other campaigns\u2014Obama and McCain\u2014doing in terms of Catholic outreach?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve seen no evidence whatsoever of Senator Obama reaching out to Catholic groups or Catholics. Maybe I haven\u2019t paid close enough attention to it. And I\u2019ve seen no evidence of John McCain reaching out to Catholics or Catholic groups at this time. I probably talk to more Catholics than anybody in the country.
\nConsidering your past support for President Bush, would you consider supporting John McCain in the general election?<\/strong>
\nI haven\u2019t reached that point yet. We\u2019re talking about the Democratic primary here and John McCain isn\u2019t on the ballot\u2026. I would say Catholics would go with Senator Clinton over Senator McCain, because on a whole range of social and economic issues, people feel very comfortable with Senator Clinton. Catholics are working class people. They\u2019re struggling with economy and with jobs and education for their kids.
\nI feel far more comfortable with Senator McCain than with just about any other Republican, particularly because of his stand on immigration. That was courageous and he was severely criticized for it. We\u2019ll see what happens now, since he almost lost the Republican nomination as a result of being criticized for that.
\nYour supported Bush in 2000. Did you support John Kerry in 2004?<\/strong>
\nI didn\u2019t get involved at all. I was doing a radio talk show for Catholic TV and Catholic radio, and I made a commitment that I would not publicly state who I was supporting.<\/p>\n


\n9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raymond Flynn was U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican under President Bill Clinton and, before that, Mayor of Boston. In recent years, the lifelong Democrat has been an advocate for the poor and for social conservative causes, which has sometimes put him at odds with his own party. He backed Mitt Romney for governor of Massachusetts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hillary-clinton"],"yoast_head":"\nInterview: Why Ray Flynn Backs Clinton - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Interview: Why Ray Flynn Backs Clinton - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Raymond Flynn was U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican under President Bill Clinton and, before that, Mayor of Boston. In recent years, the lifelong Democrat has been an advocate for the poor and for social conservative causes, which has sometimes put him at odds with his own party. He backed Mitt Romney for governor of Massachusetts…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-04-25T15:55:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/flynn.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Interview: Why Ray Flynn Backs Clinton - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Interview: Why Ray Flynn Backs Clinton - God-O-Meter","og_description":"Raymond Flynn was U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican under President Bill Clinton and, before that, Mayor of Boston. In recent years, the lifelong Democrat has been an advocate for the poor and for social conservative causes, which has sometimes put him at odds with his own party. He backed Mitt Romney for governor of Massachusetts…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2008-04-25T15:55:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/flynn.jpg"}],"author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html","name":"Interview: Why Ray Flynn Backs Clinton - God-O-Meter","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/flynn.jpg","datePublished":"2008-04-25T15:55:24+00:00","dateModified":"2008-04-25T15:55:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/flynn.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/flynn.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/04\/why-ray-flynn-backs-clinton-qa.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Interview: Why Ray Flynn Backs Clinton"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/","name":"God-O-Meter","description":"A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4","name":"dgilgoff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","caption":"dgilgoff"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/author\/dgilgoff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}