Inside Politics

Losing Christians

“After months of speeches and debates, and nearly $1 billion in total campaign spending to date, the presidential race is a dead heat,” Joel C. Rosenberg writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).

“A head-to-head showdown between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama is now too close to call — 45.9 percent to 44.6 percent — based on an averaging of national polls by realclearpolitics.com. A head-to-head showdown between McCain and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is also razor-thin, 46 percent to 45.7 percent,” Mr. Rosenberg says.

“Now, a poll of likely Christian voters offers evidence of why the McCain campaign is struggling to gain real traction and a lead that can last. The poll was conducted among 1,000 likely Christian voters early last week, on behalf of November Communications Inc., the company I founded in 2000. McLaughlin & Associates, a leading polling firm for many Republican candidates, but unaffiliated in the current presidential campaign, conducted the survey.

“The Arizona senator is losing the Christian vote decisively to both Obama and Clinton, even though the poll was conducted as the recent firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. erupted.

“If the general election were held today, McCain would lose the Christian vote to the Democratic nominee — 36 percent to 45 percent — with 19 percent of Christian voters currently undecided.

“Among Protestants, McCain pulls even with the Democrats at 40 percent. But the Democrats have a whopping 32-point lead over McCain among Catholics.

“Among white evangelical Protestants, McCain is doing better (51 percent to 28 percent), but clearly they have not rallied behind him at this point.”

Media darling

“It is certainly no secret that Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a darling of the news media,” Neal Gabler writes in the New York Times.

“Reporters routinely attach ‘maverick,’ ‘straight talker’ and ‘patriot’ to him like Homeric epithets. Chris Matthews of MSNBC has even called the press ‘McCain”s base’ — a comment that Mr. McCain himself has jokingly reiterated. The mainstream news media by and large don”t cover Mr. McCain; they canonize him. Hence the moniker on liberal blogs: St. McCain,” Mr. Gabler said.

“What is less obvious, however, is exactly why the press swoons for him. The answer, which says a great deal about both the political press and Mr. McCain, may be that he is something political reporters really haven”t seen in quite a while, perhaps since John F. Kennedy.

“Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement and bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the first to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy.”

Unlikely venue

NBC’s evening news broadcast on Tuesday noted Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unlikely visit to a conservative Pittsburgh newspaper, the Media Research Center’s Brent Baker writes at www.mrc.org.

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