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It’s no secret that Barack Obama fared poorly among white-working class voters in the Indiana primary. Why did he not win them over? Thomas M. DeFrank of The New York Daily News knows — Joe Six-Pack is a religious bigot:
Demography is destiny. For the most part, this apothegm has defined this year’s Democratic presidential election results. It sure characterized last night’s results in Indiana and North Carolina. As Christi Parsons and Mike Dorning, my old colleague at The Chicago Tribune, wrote,
In popular Catholic piety, Padre Pio Pietrelcina is still a revered figure, if not to the extent that he was for decades after World War II. The Italian Capuchin monk bore the stigmata on his hands, chest, and feet. He cured people. He made prophesies. So how will the intellectual Pope Benedict XVI treat the saint and his emotional followers?
It’s no secret that the U.S. Catholic church has comparatively fewer priests than it had 40 years ago. So how are Catholics responding? Melanie Lefkowitz of Newsday wrote about one response: an influx of older seminarians and priests entering the ministry.
It’s well known that John McCain’s relationship with evangelical Christian leaders is strained. But did you know that McCain attended daily chapel in high school and was a room chaplain for his fellow prisoners of war in North Vietnam?
Anniversaries are anniversaries and several tumultuous events of 1968 have already been rehashed (see here) by reporters this year. You can bet that more (such as this one) stories of this kind are on the way. What angles should reporters look for?
For their story about the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s comments yesterday, Shailagh Murray and Peter Slevin of The Washington Post focused on the politics of his appearance and speech. Their emphasis is understandable for obvious reasons. Yet the reporters underplayed the religion angle in their story — and thus also weakened their political angle.
For months, I have complained that newspapers have given readers too little information about the electoral preferences of religious and non-religious voters. Then came last Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary. Now I know where to look for more information: the denominational press (the competing Baptist newsrooms, to be specific).
