The Party Faithful

In the latest issue of the New Yorker , Peter J. Boyer weighs in on the importance of religious voters in the upcoming presidential election and the difficulties both parties are having connecting to that crucial segment of the electorate. The article, while not entirely impartial, does an excellent job highlighting some of the most basic concerns for faith-directed voters:

The Saddleback event illuminated Obama’s greatest liability for faith-based voters: his resolute support for abortion rights. Many, including Doug Kmiec, winced when Obama said, at a town-hall meeting last spring, that he supported sex education because he didn’t want his daughters “punished with a baby.” The week after the Saddleback event, conservative commentators advanced the theme that Obama supported infanticide, as evidenced by his opposition to a 2003 bill in the Illinois legislature requiring medical personnel to attempt to sustain the lives of babies that survive abortion procedures. Obama’s various explanations—that the bill threatened the rights established by Roe v. Wade; that his opposition was largely procedural—did not stand up well to scrutiny, and even Doug Kmiec admitted to having doubts.

“Here is a bit of an Achilles’ heel,” Kmiec says. “Senator Obama the candidate, as many have observed, is different from Senator Obama the legislator. That’s the unanswered question about the Senator. And it’s a question that does require a leap of faith on my part, and on the part of anyone who comes to him from perspectives like my own.”

Kmiec has decided that he is willing to take that leap. Obama has no reason to expect a mass exodus of religious conservatives from the Republican ranks, but if he can persuade even a portion of those voters who were swayed to Bush’s side by the Rove religious machine, it could be enough.