Not much religion news out of the exitpoll data last night. Once again, Democrats were not asked if they consider themselves born again or evangelical, even though Republicans were asked the question last week. The only religion question was church attendance:
How often do you attend religious services?
Obama (55%)
Clinton (27%)
Edwards (18%)
More than once a week (25%)
64
23
12
Once a week (29%)
52
29
19
A few times a month (14%)
57
22
21
A few times a year (21%)
46
31
23
Never (9%)
38
31
31
The speeches had a bit of religion talk too. Obama talked about the principalities and powers (not his phrase) he’s battling against:
What we’ve seen in these last weeks is that we’re also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It’s a politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won’t cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don’t vote, the assumption that African-Americans can’t support the white candidate, whites can’t support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.
We are here tonight to say that that is not the America we believe in. … I know that when people say we can’t overcome all the big money and influence in Washington, I think of that elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day, an envelope that had a money order for $3.01 along with a verse of Scripture tucked inside the envelope.
Obama ended his speech with what he called a creed: the “timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words: Yes, we can.”
Obama didn’t invoke God, but Clinton did, briefly:
Many of us, as I look around this crowd, know that we were given blessings and opportunities that we inherited, didn’t we? And those were the results of the hard work of our parents, our grandparents, and people we never met, people who defend our freedoms, people who created the businesses that employed us, who pushed down the barriers that prevented any of us from fulfilling our God-given potential.
She may have said more, but TV viewers didn’t get to see it since the networks cut her off. Edwards, at least, got in his last line, which included a shout-out to the Almighty: “God bless you all and thank you for your support and thank you for being here and thank you for your voice.”
