{"id":283,"date":"2008-09-18T09:59:31","date_gmt":"2008-09-18T09:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/09\/opposing-obama-because-of-his.html"},"modified":"2008-09-18T09:59:31","modified_gmt":"2008-09-18T09:59:31","slug":"opposing-obama-because-of-his","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/09\/opposing-obama-because-of-his.html","title":{"rendered":"Opposing Obama Because of His Race, er, I Mean Position on Abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since we commonly ascribe Obama’s troubles with working class Catholics to his positions on abortion or his perceived “elitism” (how can you vote for a guy with a sub-80 bowling score???) it was useful to be reminded by a recent New York Times’ piece that sometimes substantive issues are excuses to cloak other factors:<\/p>\n

One parishioner ruled out voting for Mr. Obama explicitly because he is black. “Are they going to make it the Black House?” Ray McCormick asked, to embarrassed hushing from a half dozen others gathered around the rectory kitchen. (Five of the six, all lifelong Democrats who supported Mrs. Clinton in the primary, said they now lean toward Mr. McCain.) Mr. Madonna, the political scientist, said of the Catholic vote in white, working-class Scranton, “This is a tough area for Obama and some of it is race.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course it was the Daily Show that provided the funniest analysis of the race factor:<\/embed><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since we commonly ascribe Obama’s troubles with working class Catholics to his positions on abortion or his perceived “elitism” (how can you vote for a guy with a sub-80 bowling score???) it was useful to be reminded by a recent New York Times’ piece that sometimes substantive issues are excuses to cloak other factors: One…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nOpposing Obama Because of His Race, er, I Mean Position on Abortion - Steven Waldman<\/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\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/09\/opposing-obama-because-of-his.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opposing Obama Because of His Race, er, I Mean Position on Abortion - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Since we commonly ascribe Obama’s troubles with working class Catholics to his positions on abortion or his perceived “elitism” (how can you vote for a guy with a sub-80 bowling score???) it was useful to be reminded by a recent New York Times’ piece that sometimes substantive issues are excuses to cloak other factors: One…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/09\/opposing-obama-because-of-his.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-18T09:59:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Opposing Obama Because of His Race, er, I Mean Position on Abortion - Steven Waldman","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\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/09\/opposing-obama-because-of-his.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Opposing Obama Because of His Race, er, I Mean Position on Abortion - 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He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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