Non-Xtians

Also, for the first time in memory, they have to at least throw a bone to the non-religious or "unaffiliated" 16% of the population (at least, the Democratic candidates do). It's refreshing that they are at least acknowledging the existence of non-believers. Unlike their gods, non-believers actually do exist, and they vote, and nobody is willing to risk alienating an educated and politically aware segment of the electorate, even if it's relatively small.

We owe this shift to the vocal atheist bestselling authors that have grabbed the attention of the media over the last couple of years. It's kinda nice.

Keep God out of it, for gods sake

We're off, on a sidetrack here!
A candidates personal beliefs, gender or sexuality has no bearing on the qualities a leader needs.
Old Bennet claimed to have a direct line to God, perhaps he felt he had that? but it had no connection to his leadership and had best not been mentioned.
It is tiresome to see how candidates will go through contortions to "suit the image" that some spin-doctors think is needed.
Why bother? after a short time in office it becomes clear that the elected person is merely a human, warts and all!

Partly true

While gender and sexuality are irrelevant, I don't see how personal beliefs are unimportant. Politicians form their policies based on their personal beliefs, and voters vote according to their personal beliefs.

With the huge environmental challenges that face us, it is relevant, for example, that Huckabee has no knowledge of the most basic biology. And we aren't talking college level, we're talking grade 5 level or lower. This is due to his personal, Southern Baptist, beliefs. Americans don't have the luxury of having leaders that are that ignorant (not that he will be elected president, but the current president is no better). So, perhaps not all personal beliefs are relevant to how a politician will govern, but some certainly are.

Booker

No it's not. The U.S. electoral system is totally different

The electoral system is not that different. its made up of two parties running in a first past the post system that means they eternally tune their policies to appeal to the narrow band of voters that could swing either way.

Sounds like Canada without the NDP to me.

Because its as simplistic as a Stockwell Day speech. 48.7% of the US electorate couldn't be motivated to vote for Gore (or anyone else) yet you want to blame the election victory of Bush on the 1% or so that voted for Nader?. Does that seriously make a lot of sense?

Gore didn't win because he didn't appeal to 3/4 of the electorate. It couldn't be simpler.

And Gore lost them because he took their support for granted. His mistake.

The reverse is true. They know that voting for the status quo is not ever going to mean change. Their support for Nader put pressure on the Dems to offer them a candidate they can vote for. Perhaps Obama is him, we'll see. That sounds like a hell of a lot of strategic sense to me.

That's because they prefer to ignore the fact their candidate didn't appeal to the 48.7% of the electorate that didn't vote at all. And placing the blame on themselves for their defeat is too uncomfortable.

A lesson the Dems have failed to learn. They'll villify Nader instead of bringing him onside and publicly adopting some of his policies.

No bearing on leadership qualities?

"A candidate's personal beliefs, gender or sexuality has no bearing on the qualities a leader needs."

-Really? But Bush's personal religious beliefs reportedly include his belief that God answers his prayers personally, and God lets him know when Bush is making a right decision or not.

Bush's decision to invade Iraq was at least in part due, reportedly, to his praying about it, and believing God answered his prayers, informing him it was the right decision to go to war against Saddam.

'Cause when you've got God on your side, you know you're doin' the right thing! Mere human critics are easily dismissed when the Big Guy's approved your plan! Whada they know? Fools!

And, Bush continues to claim:
history will eventually prove him (and God) right!

-In Bush's case, his own specific religious beliefs have had a huge bearing on his leadership qualities - by way of lowering the quality of his leadership to the point of his being out of touch with reality and becoming dangerous.

-It looks like Ralph Nader is the only pres. candidate in '08 who does not make a point of talking about his "faith".
I tried searching to see if he holds to any
particular religion at all, but in online bios, I can't find a single mention of his beliefs. Bios mention his parents
were Lebanese, but don't say whether they were Muslim, or not...although, just as with Obama's Dad, the simple fact Nader's parents were from a majority Muslim country, could give ammo to rumour-mongers who might want to spread disinfo. that Ralph's really a Muslim agent with a hidden, dire agenda for the US...as if helping get Bush installed in 2000 wasn't dire enough!

LOL!

I'm with Bobb999 on this one. Personal beliefs matter greatly with any leader. If the belief systems in someone is false, they risk leading others to death if not their own. I hate to break it to those who think it doesn't matter, but physical, mental and emotional health is trumped by unhealthy beliefs.

The next time you all walk in a cemetary (which might not happen for some, its a stark reminder of their future or semi-permanent separation from loved ones), you can all remind yourselves that 3/4's of the population timed out because they believed in something that wasn't true.

"Cigarettes won't kill me. Alchohol drunk in moderation is good for me. Food from safeway is safe. Government standards wouldn't allow toxins to come into my food supply. I can eat fish from this river. Having a gun in my home is safe. I can live a long life and eat whatever I want. I'm not addicted to drugs or alchohol. I don't need to wear seat belts. Eating vegetables make me sick so they must be bad for me. Its my duty to serve my country as a soldier regardless of my nations foreign policy. I need prescription drugs to cope."

We don't even have to talk about beliefs in God to see how nutty people really are in terms of what they believe. And perhaps the ugliest belief of all? "I can buy anything with money."

So who/what do you worship... power? Money? Prestige? Purity due to your color of skin, sex, age, wealth, family name etc.?

As for the evolution question, even God had to have an origin and that origin would have been evolution if anyone has any common sense. So too, are creations able to evolve, created purposely this way to survive changing environments through adaptability itself. Tough truths for the average religious theist. So too, is the concept of what God actually is, for God is known by many faces in Christianity or in other words, is not the whole but the sum of its parts that is "one". Ask yourselves why spirits end up in Gods body to begin with and there it is...

Interesting, but ....

This is all very interesting, but it would be more so if there was somehow a link to Canadian politics. Is a person's religious beliefs relevant in Canadian politics? That would be a much bigger debate.

Nothing to do with God

Obama will get almost all of the black vote along with a whole lot of non black still guilt ridden about their role in slavery. They expect to assuage their collective guilt by voting for a black. It does not matter that the race is about change and charisma with little substance left once the heat of battle has subsided. Nothing Hillary can say will will change those minds. The question is are there enough of those "others" left.

George W. will lose the election for McCain, not because of Dubya's religious beliefs butbecause that assistant to Chretien was right about him some years back

Greetings Brain. Your post

Greetings Brain.
Your post reminds me of criticisms I've written about confirmed fundamentalist materialist atheist Christopher Hitchens.
He rails against the irrationality and destructiveness of religious belief and behaviour (I admit he has some valid points), while he lives a personal life of irrationality and destructive behaviour himself. A, '07 "authorized" New Yorker profile he cooperated with, spills the beans on his chronic alcoholism and chain smoking. His obesity is obvious. Here's a man committing slow suicide in several ways ,who claims he's rational! Besides destroying his own body, he's endangering the health of those around him with his 2nd hand smoke.He's not even rational enough to perceive or own up to his own alcoholism ("self medicating", he calls it), although observers have said Hitch "drinks continuously" and his current wife says "he's obviously an alcoholic", and worries about his early demise.

Adamant atheists like Hitch who say it's a certainty there is no such thing as a spiritual principle underlying the Universe (i.e. all Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Shamans, Sufis, etc...and mystics of all varieties, have always been all wrong all the time),
are as fundamentalist in their materialist ideology as your average jihadist is.
True, there are fewer suicide bombers among most atheists, but Hitch has lit the fuse on his own version of "suicide bomb",
and is likely endangering others too with his destructive, irrational habits.
**********************
As for the canard that "guilt" is a major factor in white Americans voting for Obama:
Obamamania is based on positive emotions:
hope, excitement, inspiration, optimism, and on Obama's personal charisma and his policies. Negative emotions like guilt and fear have very little to do with
Obama's appeal to voters. Even some right wing pundits and GOPers have caught Obama fever, e.g. Chris Matthews!

To sum up

People should use their single ballot to vote for what they want. Nobody asks or cares what you hope for, only what you actually vote for. And if you vote status quo don't be shocked when real change never happens.

Jerry Falwell?

McCain has had difficulty balancing his role as a straight-talking, anti-partisan critic of the Bush presidency with the need to ally himself with powerful religious leaders (and vote getters) like Jerry Falwell.

You mean the dead Jerry Falwell, or some other Jerry Falwell?

Unfortunately, the Black

Unfortunately, the Black Church is extremely afro-centrist. And that is obvious if one looks at Obama's church (Trinity Unity) website.

WHY POINT THE FINGER AT THE AMERICANS?

No doubt religion is a factor in American politics, but it is in Canada as well. However, most popular press commentaries in this country ignore the religious factor wherever possible, and the political parties generally don't make explicit appeals to religion.

Yet any political scientist will tell you that one Canadian voter study after another over the last half century will confirm that as a general rule Catholics tend to vote Liberal. And in the last two elections, when the Liberals slid from majority to minority to opposition, their slide was concentrated among two groups, Catholics and visible minorities. The Liberals still prevailed over the other parties within these two groups, but their margins had been seriously reduced.

Pope & Politics in Cda.

"Yet any political scientist will tell you that one Canadian voter study after another over the last half century will confirm that as a general rule Catholics tend to vote Liberal"

-Well, most CANADIANS have tended to vote Liberal over time. Why should Catholics be any different? Look at Quebec, and what the Quiet Revolution did to social conservatism
and obedience to Catholic doctrine. The Quiet Rev. all but finished off the sway of Catholic doctrine in Quebec. The Bloc and PQ did rise to challenge Libs. in Que.,
but those parties are even more liberal
on social issues than the Liberals.

And until recently, the Conservative Party was the Progressive Conservative Party which was not much more socially conservative than Libs. were, when it came to issues like abortion and contraception.

-Even under ex-Reformer Harper, the new Conservatives are not pushing an anti-abortion agenda,'cause they know that to do so would only serve to alienate mainstream Cdn. voters, including in "Catholic" Quebec.

CANADIAN ELECTION STUDIES

"Well, most CANADIANS have tended to vote Liberal over time. Why should Catholics be any different?"

Statistical studies done by academic political scientists over the years have identified a significant tendency for Catholic religion to be associated with voting Liberal. That statistical tendency is still observed when other factos, such as region, are controlled for.

Political parties & religious affiliation

Interesting.
Got some links to any of these stats, by chance?

By way of a possible explanation for this, I'm wondering if many decades ago the Conservatives became identified as a Protestant-biased party, while the Libs may have been generally more welcoming of Catholics.

It's hard to imagine now, but there used to be deep social divisions in Canada between Catholics and Protestants, that no longer exist in the same way. Some of this feeling may have been reflected in political affiliation too, which could explain your Lib-Catholic association stats. Just a guess.

My cousin in Ontario who married in the late '40s was ostracized for decades by her Protestant family just 'cause she married a Catholic war hero instead of a Protestant! I'm guessing such strong sentiments weren't all that uncommon at the time.

I think you've got it Bobb999 but it's not changing that much

It was called the 'family compact' in upper Canada and it ranged against the papists in Lower Canada. The former tended to be Anglican and Protestant while the latter was more usually associated with the Catholic church and immigration.

The same patterns of belief and behavior have tended to show up in the places where immigrants from Ontario (primarily) ended up as the 'establishment' when they immigrated west.

The French to Parts of Manitoba and a few isolated spots in the prairies (and even BC) and the English mostly everywhere else.

The Ontario immigrants usually formed the first municipal governments and town councils wherever they went - where the French ended up the church got into the act in schools and the like.

This isn’t to say there weren’t lots of immigrants from other countries and traditions…but, when they got here they tended to fit into the existing structure – which was either Catholic/Liberal or Protestant/Tory.

As Frank has repeatedly, and accurately, pointed out - most peoples' voting patterns follow their parental exemplars and almost never change. Occasionally things get bad enough that folks decide to take things into their own hands and create a new party….

In fact, we used to have a fella here called Sir John A, Nemesis, Elliot and a few other things who was positively apoplectic that he 'once' voted (obviously against his traditions) for the NDP.

I think it was the only reason he ever bothered to post here - he couldn't get over it.

A PARTIAL LINK FOR Bobb999

Interesting.
Got some links to any of these stats, by chance?

http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/pdfs/2007Abstracts.pdf

Fairie, Paul Michael, God Only Knows: The Canadian Catholic Voter in a Comparative Context"
In his 2005 presidential address to the CPSA, André Blais challenged political scientists to explain the long-standing connection between the Catholic voter and the Liberal Party of Canada. This poster presentation responds at least partly to this challenge by providing a comparative perspective to the puzzle. In this context, the Canadian Catholic voter becomes much less confounding. Catholics in Anglo- American countries have long been associated with parties on the left, while their Protestant counterparts have preferred parties to the right. In western continental Europe, the reverse is true. Explaining this difference should add some clarity to the Canadian conundrum. What explains this variance? I propose three closely linked factors: first, the party systems in the two cultural spheres present voters with rather different choices, with the presence of Christian Democratic parties in Europe of particular note; second, the churches are reacting to different pressures, with western European Catholic churches being long-established, while the Anglo-American Catholic churches are largely immigrant churches established in an existing Protestant setting; and, finally, in accordance with John Whyte (1981), the churches themselves are integrated differently into secular society, as western European churches embody "closed" Catholicism, marked by the existence of confessional social organizations and explicit pulpit-party connections, while Anglo-American Catholicism is more "open", and is marked by the lack of religious-based social organizations and a division between the pulpit and partisanship. These differences are directly linked to the partisan preferences of Catholics and Protestants in Anglo-American and western continental Europe.

I got your point

OK let me put it another way:
a candidates personal belief is something he should keep to himself!
At least in Canada as with old man Bennett, he was a leader of a political party and as such should work for the platform of said party; NOT his own religious conviction.

Same of course with Bush and all the other clowns who think they are above the policies set out by their electorate.

My feeling is that leaders should not have the power to overrule the party that sponsored them.

Religion & politics - bad scene.

Yes indeedy, the religious beliefs of a politician does have a bearing upon how she/he votes on legislation. But that is no guarantee that he/she will necessarily support the rules that religion advocates, it only indicates an observable average.

Most Christian religions today experience near-schisms within their followings, as seen with the Fundamentalists in the Protestant religions, and the Charismatics in the RC faith. Both are authoritarian, the first hewing to the "literality" of the Bible, and the second to an unquestioned authority of the Pope's ex cathedra pronouncements.

Beyond question, the more Fundamentalists and the more Charismatics we elect, the more conservative will be the legislation of the governments in which they participate. And so also does the opposite hold true, re religious politicians who may hold more tolerant views.

Since many people think we shouldn't EVEN ASK what a prospective politician's religion is, let alone delve into things more specific, this raises serious questions re the legitimacy of voting without such knowledge, which has to be balanced against raising the spectre of religious intolerance.

It is not just an academic question, as a friend of mine who had a parent dying an excruciatingly painful death found out several years ago. Since he was interested in right-to-die legislation, he was directed to a committee then studying proposed legislation. He found out that the appointed committee had 75% RC membership, guaranteeing the predictable result.

I've no idea how we solve this dilemma, but it seems to me we should be looking for some way to do it.

The alternative is to face the election of a gov't such as Harper's where we fear him achieving a majority, while he muzzles his wingnuts already elected lest they demonstrate where their real potential lies.

The Disease spreads

Headline in today's Globe & Mail: "Evangelist Takes Credit for Film Crackdown"

"We're thankful that someone's finally listening," he said yesterday. "It's fitting with conservative values, and I think that's why Canadians voted for a Conservative government."

Mr. McVety said films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign.

Oh won't it be great if we get a majority Conservative government? Everything will be so wholesome and we can go back to seeing great TV shows in the tradition of Little House on the Prairie. I'm glad we have Steve deciding what we can see and what we can't so we don't have to worry out pretty little heads about it. Let's spend our tax dollars on good things, like teaching the true 6,000 year history of the earth, and that a man's home is his castle. Let's not let those tax funded scientists tell us those silly stories about the environment and pollution. God has things under control, and He won't let anything bad happen to us...