Democratic candidates score big with clergy, religious organizations

December 14, 2007

When it comes to campaign contributions, the 2008 presidential campaign keeps turning the conventional wisdom on its ear.

The political establishment assumes that two reliable allies of conservative Republican candidates are U.S. troops and American clergy. On the prior, we learned earlier in the fall that military donations are going heavily towards Barack Obama and Ron Paul, both of whom are staunch opponents of the president’s policy in Iraq.

And on the latter, clergy seem to be defying the conventional wisdom as well.

Clergy and religious organizations contribute to political candidates, just like investment bankers or teachers or any other group. That clergy give doesn’t surprise, but how they’re giving does. […]

Thus far in the ’08 cycle, 56 percent of religious groups’ and leaders’ donations have gone to Democrats, and 43 percent to Republicans, compared with 52/47 in favor of Republicans in ’06 and 51/49 in favor of Democrats (!) in 2004. […]

You can only read so much into these numbers. After all, in the aggregate religious groups have backed the losers of the last two elections. But the partisan gap in contributions is wider now than it’s been since 1992.

In three of the last four cycles, clergy have backed Republicans in greater numbers than Democrats. The lone exception, 2004, was practically even.

But this year, clergy contributions are going to the Dems by a wide margin — according to the data from the Center for Responsive Politics, 56% is the strongest percentage Dems have had with clergy donations in two decades.

As for the specific candidates receiving checks from the clergy, the race isn’t even close:

1. Barack Obama: $110,000

2. Mitt Romney: $39,000

3. Mike Huckabee: $23,000

Obviously, as the figures show, clergy aren’t going to compete with oil company executives any time soon when it comes to bundling and/or hosting lucrative fundraisers.

But who would have thought that a Democratic candidate would have raised almost triple the leading Republican when it comes to money from pastors?

The conventional wisdom is that the faithful overwhelmingly prefer Republicans to Dems. And yet, there’s ample evidence to the contrary.

Maybe the clergy don’t believe – among other things – that Jesus would have vetoed health insurance for poor children.

  • i wonder if “the clergy” really overwhelmingly supported Republicans at any time, or is that simply conventional wisdom? There are so many variations of clergy and so many flavors of churches/synagogues/mosques that I have a bad feeling about such broad statements. Now, if you were discussing a particular group of clergy, such as the self-proclaimed born-again Christians and Evangelicals, I might agree.

    There is a tendency in the liberal blogosphere to pain all religious folks witht eh same brush, which is a serious mistake and serves to alienate those who agree with the liberals on almost everything except maybe whether there is a God or not, or maybe some issues with sexual behavior which have nothing to do with politics.

  • Your summary of recipients of clergy dollars is not quite right:

    1. Barack Obama: $110,000
    2. Hillary Clinton: $88,910
    3. Mitt Romney: $39,000
    4. Mike Huckabee: $23,000

    cite here. I see how the WSJ blog phrased the whole thing that might make you think that Romney was #2, but in fact he’s #3 – trailing even SATAN HERSELF! How’s that for a blow to “conventional wisdom”

  • Carol –

    You can view the numbers for yourself over here. These numbers stretch back to 1990.

    In 2004:
    1. Bush, George W: $324,706
    2. Kerry, John: $271,237

    In 2000:
    1. Bush, George W: $80,325
    2. Gore, Al: $42,410

    In 1996:
    1. Clinton, Bill: $24,000
    2. Dole, Bob: $19,175

    In 1992:
    2. Clinton, Bill: $14,300
    3. LaRouche, Lyndon H Jr: $10,645
    4. Bush, George: $7,700

    (In ’92 Al D’Amato got more money for his Senate run from clergy than any of the presidential candidates).

    The numbers show some interesting things. The MOST interesting thing is how much more money clergy members are giving today than 15 years ago. Or even than 8 years ago – Obama and Clinton have already surpassed the dollar amounts that W got from clergy in ’00 and we haven’t even gotten out of primary season yet.

    They also suggest that the clergy liked Clinton, didn’t like Bush the Elder, didn’t like Gore, and for some reason liked Bush the Lesser. I suspect his “compassionate conservatism” push might have won some of them over – mainstream clergy tend to lean conservative on a lot of social issues but liberal on anti-poverty issues. If he convinced them he was going to be that kind of President, I could see how they might be swayed to support him. (Doesn’t explain ’04 though – but then, Kerry does pretty well among clergy in ’04 so maybe that’s explanation enough).

    (And more clergy gave money to Lyndon LaRouche in ’92 than to Bush the Elder. That makes me laugh.)

  • Carol is so right. Both sides tend to paint the other in black and white and reality is fortunately much more nuanced. Religion is not monolithically anything.

  • The WingNuttia declaration that pastors giving to “non-GOPers” are phony pastors will begin in 5….4….3……..

  • A significant factor in Bush’s support in 2000 was his faith-based initiatives plank, which clergy knew would route federal money directly into their ministries and services. I’d wager that the uptick in contributions came mostly from people who expected (or were assured) to receive these funds.

    On a different but related note, Romney’s getting millions from Mormons:
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=agdQ3J8UxyIU&refer=home.

    Thanks for the link, Steve.

  • Maybe conventional wisdom of religious folks is trending toward hard and fast issues such as caring for the living beings in concrete ways such as saving the planet, providing fair wages and health insurance, education, and basic rights instead of worrying about mind-bending issues that require judgement then passing a verdict – things like cells that have the potential to make a life, or rice thrown for consenting adults who want to commit to each other, or the consequences of teaching/not teaching Christain doctrine in public schools, or taking extreme measures to keep brain-dead folks “alive”. Maybe. I think it is. We just don’t have the time to ponder things that are abstract anymore with all the real problems that we know are happening now.

  • I’m wondering how much of this is coming from new donors.
    People so cheesed at Bush and Co that they are expressing their anger with money.

    The money is increasing since 2000 when McCain made online fundraising successful and Dean took it to new heights.
    It’s tough to find the address to mail a check to and a pain to lick a stamp and write out teh check.
    Easy as pie to go to http://www.candidatesite.com and plug in your VISA number.

    Throw in the soft money ban and we’re seeing a lot more private individual donations and when it comes to POPULAR support, the Dems have always been on top.

  • The WingNuttia declaration that pastors giving to “non-GOPers” are phony pastors will begin in 5….4….3……..
    -Steve

    More like the Bush WH will direct the IRS to “investigate” (read: intimidate) these pastors in 5….4…..3

  • This morning’s Seattle Post-Intelliigencer had an excellent letter regarding religion in politics.

    Column welcome antidote to Romney’s pious speech
    The guest column of Dec 7, “Romney’s case for pastor in chief,” was a welcome antidote to Mitt Romney’s pious speech, which included the line, “the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests.”

    That’s one of the favorite beliefs of religionists and it gets repeated endlessly by people who assume it’s true. It’s been proclaimed from the pulpit and has become received truth joining the body of fact everyone “knows.”

    Actually the nation’s Founders were a mixed bag, religiously; some believers, some skeptics. Pointedly skeptical remarks about religious faith were written by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, to mention just two.

    The “foundation of faith” for our Constitution wasn’t a Christian one at all. It was, rather, the faith that common citizens were capable of self-government; that they could decide on public policies and carry them out, and that, however flawed, they would be an improvement over life under monarchs or oligarchy. That was a powerful idea emerging at the time. That, coupled with the political concept of loyal opposition: If your party loses the election you continue being the best citizen you can and work hard to win the next time.

    What meaning can loyal opposition have if religion and the preachers get a foothold in governance? They speak for God then. You’d better not be opposing that.

    John Goetzinger
    Seattle

    The last two paragraphs in particular ought to be circulated as widely as possible.

  • NonyNony: Thanks for the dollar breakdown. It tells me that more money went to one or the other candidate, but to me is not very enlightening. How much was the average donation? Did the clergy start donating in larger numbers, or did some small subset of clergy donate as much as they could to given (Republican no doubt) candidates? And has that small subset changed, or has the number of clergy donating changed, or what/? I don’t expect anyone to answer this, since it would require a lot of research, unless the information is at hand somewhere, and I can’t find it.

  • The only reason this surprises anyone is because the likes of Pat Robertson and the late, unlamented Jerry Falwell have been so successful at hogging the labels “Christian” and “clergymen” and “religious” as though those terms were the exclusive property of fundamentalists. A lot of people of faith find them and their message appalling.

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  • The only thing about it that suprises me is that John Edwards is not way up there at #2 or so. His populism should appeal to clergymen.

  • I will enthusiastically support Obama or Edwards if they win the nomination but I want to send the best horse we have to the race. Too many people are making the same mistake with Clinton as they made with Al Gore in 2000: believing that they are Republican-lite and not worthy of support. There was a world of difference between Gore and Bush as Americans and the rest of the world found out.

    Hillary better take off the kid-gloves and hit Obama and Edwards with the simple truth:

    Obama outed himself as a cocaine user referring to it as “blow” in his biography. What do you think the kind-hearted Rep’s will do with that info? He supports (as do I) drivers licenses for Illegal aliens. They will likely DESTROY the young first term senator on those two things alone.

    Edwards has financially tied his own hands by accepting public financing. If he wins the nomination he will have little to no chance of winning a general election. He didn’t win his home state in the general election of 2004, he will probably lose the primary this time and has virtually no chance of winning his home state in the general.

    Keep something else in mind when you look at the head-to-head numbers for the primary and the general election: Hillary has already been hit hard with attacks by her Dem and Rep opponents and she is still standing. Neither Obama nor Edwards have had to absorb those kinds of sustained blows. Edwards has not recovered from the one attack on his haircut. Rudy, on the other side, has had a few bad weeks and his shot at the big prize is effectively over (someone should tell him).

    It would have been better for Hillary in January 2009 if she didn’t have to go after her Dem opponents and ruffle their feathers; she would get more bills passed. But given the situation, she better start bloodying some noses or the country will be led by a president from a party that should have had to dissolve itself based on their unprecedented incompetence and corruption.

  • Clergy of all sects and denominations have the collective intelligence of a sack of hammers.

    Why be proud of the con men and idiots vote? You keep your bronze age myths and madness out of my politics and I promise not to filibusters your preachers in church.

  • Besides what the obvious fact that no one who would have otherwise voted for Obama is going to
    not vote for him because of the “drug issue”. I’m salivating, though, for the first Wingnut to bring up the cocaine thing, because the current occupant of the White House put more coke up his nose, at a later age, than Obama has probably ever seen in his life. And that sure didn’t bother the wingnuts now, did it. So bring it on.

  • I know many believe dems are godless secular creatures. This is completely untrue. I am not surprised many clergy and the faithful support Barack Obama. His speech on the blending of religion in politics was truly inspirational. You’ll find yourself nodding “Yeah, this is the way it is supposed to be”. If you are scratching your head wondering how “religious America” could support a democrat, take a look at this speech. It really is the common sense we need to bring all of America together:
    http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid463869411/bctid416343938

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  • They shouldn’t be donating to ANY campaign. In return for their tax exempt status, those who proselytize for money are supposed to be decidedly apolitical. That money, after all, comes from the parishioners. That makes them a campaign fund-raising group. That’s fine, as long as the church pays taxes, which of course, they do not.

  • They shouldn’t be donating to ANY campaign. In exchange for their tax-exempt status, churches, and those who make a living running them, are supposed to be decidedly apolitical.

  • Sorry for the double (now triple) post. It told me I answered the spam-guard question wrong the first time so I assumed it didn’t go through.

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