THERE is a mantra going around that the best way to know how Americans vote is to find out where they are on Sunday.
Regular churchgoers opted for George W. Bush in the 2004 general election, preferring him over John Kerry, who was not known to be comfortable talking abut his Catholic beliefs.
In 2000, Bush reportedly won over 56% of those Americans who attend religious services weekly, against 41% for Al Gore.
Over the past five decades, the Gallup Poll frequently surveyed Americans on the role of religion in their lives. Very often, at least 55% indicated that their faith was “very important” to them.
Women, Southerners, senior citizens, non-whites and lower income people were more inclined to say that religion was huge for them.
This week’s first official trip by Pope Benedict XVI to the United States has led to discussions about the Catholic vote; and how the Democratic presidential candidates are chasing it.
Hillary Clinton is popular among nuns, according to The New York Times, quoting her aides.
Both Clinton and her nemesis Barack Obama are battling hard for votes in the remaining eight states that have yet to hold their nominating contests.
In the critical Pennsylvania round this Tuesday, an estimated 36% of the voters are Catholics.
According to news reports, Obama have tried to connect to this group of people by speaking about his time attending a Catholic school during the four years he spent in Indonesia as a child.
Clinton, a Methodist, has been reported as saying that she had felt the presence of God in her life ever since she was a little girl. “And it has been a gift of grace that has been, for me, incredibly sustaining.”
Back in 1960, there had been concerns about John F. Kennedy being a Roman Catholic. But he was a young candidate who offered a different kind of fresh politics to voters, who were also assured that faith would not interfere with any state decisions.
Political analyst H. Wang found that in the United States, and especially in the current presidential campaign, religion had been raised as a topic in the same way that the economy, Iraq and education had been championed.
“Candidates are either promising to try to include religious ideas into the state or to exclude them further. But religion can never dictate American policies, unlike in Malaysia,” he said.
In every society, he added, religion was a tool of politics and vice versa.
“In Malaysia, religion is part of the state apparatus, with Islam being the official religion. The Government for the past 50 years has carried this out by developing Islamic interests, and building mosques and other institutions for Muslims,” he noted.
So, what role does religion play in secular America?
“Some people say the United States is the most religious nation in a secular set-up. With the state having no role in promoting religion, the state, too, has an obligation of not interfering in the private lives of its citizens,” Wang said.
“Thus, religion outside of the state flourishes. It plays an important role in America in determining political decisions. No where in the western world would the focus of an election include matters such as abortion.”
But how religious are Americans? USA Today reporting on a survey last year, noted that 60% of Americans could not even recall five of the Ten Commandments.
“Being religious does not mean being ritualistic or having a strong sense of religiosity,” Wang said. “It’s not about taking a quiz to determine a person’s faith.”
He explained that the changes in western society in the past 30 years included individuals trying to be more spiritual than ritualistic.
“At the same time, the tendency to equate religion with morality is prevalent in America,” he added.
In that sense, Americans would never vote for an atheist.
“As religion equals morality, atheism is seen as the end of morality, turning society into chaos,” Wang said.
“Americans, although firm believers in individual freedom and a free market, can accept protectionism or even a soft socialist as their president, but they will never accept an atheist.”
Jimmy Carter, for example, was left leaning but voters liked his strong Christian beliefs, he said.
Republican Mitt Romney failed in his bid for his party presidential nomination because Americans were mostly uneasy about his Mormon faith.
“He also did not succeed because he tried to pretend to be someone he isn’t, He tried to be more conservative than he actually is,” Wang pointed out.
Both Clinton and Obama have employed Catholic officials to speak on their behalf in their clamour to win over the faithful. A vast majority of the earlier arrivals among working class Hispanics are professed Catholics, too.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found in a recent survey that one in four Americans aged 18 to 29 declared they were not affiliated with any religion.
Be that as it may be, a person’s personal faith and religious views is a weighty factor in determining the choice of political candidacy in the United States.
