Fear, or HOPE

Watching the last-minute flurry of Presidential-campaign ads (and some more-local ones) this evening, I was sickened at the stark contrast between John McCain's (and Sarah Palin's) ads and stump-speeches, and Barack Obama's. But why was this contrast so sickening? And it hit me: McCain and team are pushing fear-fear-fear, while Barack sticks to messages of hope and determination. 

The Republican campaign-style has tumbled shamefully and embarrassingly to all negatives – despite Senator John's insistence otherwise at the final debate a couple weeks ago. He is (and she is) aiming to frighten voters into pulling his lever (or hanging his chad), while Barack and Biden are giving us something very positive to reach for instead. 

Looking at Barack once more from a Catholic viewpoint, I found a couple more interesting articles this afternoon, both from the National Catholic Reporter… a resource I'll admit I haven't referenced in quite some time. (I like the articles there I've reviewed, though the somewhat-weak editing grates on me, and I suspect the overall editorial slant is a bit too far to the left – i.e., away from Church tradition – for me.) 

First, here is the full text of "Catholic 'Common Good' Notions Embedded in Obama Policies", posted on Saturday by writer Vincent Miller, "an associate professor in the theology department at Georgetown University, where he teaches courses in Catholic theology, and religion and culture": 

As the campaign draws to its close, John McCain and economic adviser Joe the Plumber have reached into the Cold-War closet for one last desperate round of attacks: painting his opponent as a "socialist" bent on the "redistribution of wealth." 

This strange attack is based on Joe's ignorance of the Federal tax code, which will remain progressive should either candidate win. Joe's ignorance is excusable; McCain's is not. He certainly knows the tax code, and the idea of a "graduated tax on big fortunes" was championed by none other than McCain's hero, Teddy Roosevelt, as a tool to fight… socialism. 

Such election-year silliness rests on a deadly serious foundation, however. Decades of anti-tax and anti-government ideology preached by the Republican Party have left us desperately unprepared to debate the role of government in this time of crisis. 

The only government action we can conceive is cutting taxes. A surplus? Cut taxes. An economic slowdown? A tax rebate. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? Warn of tax cuts that favor the middle class at the expense of the wealthy. We desperately need a better vision. 

For all the political attention lavished on Catholics in elections, the Catholic vision of government always gets ignored. Catholic social thought sees government as having a necessary positive role in society. Yes, as those well-paid Washington think-tank Catholic pundits always insist, the Catholic vision of government is limited, respecting the roles of local communities and families. 

But government must also do its job: provide for the common good and assist in those things local communities cannot do for themselves. For more than a century, popes have argued for a just distribution of resources, living wages for workers, labor rights, and regulation to yoke the power of capitalism in service to the common good. 

Perhaps the catholic notion of the common good lacks a voice because few Catholics know much about it anymore. Generations grew up in union households hearing, "Pope Leo says workers have a right to unionize." Such knowledge has long faded. The Bishops' Conference and many individual bishops continue to promote the full range of social teaching, but their voices are outside the media glare garnered by the minority who offer a reliable single-issue focus on abortion. 

(The mention of Pope Leo here is a reference to the writings of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI, and their application through the stunningly sensible economic theory of Distributism, which I've been wanting to lay out here for some time. Please take a few minutes at least to skim the Wikipedia article on the concept.) 

Our instincts for the common good have been dulled by an economic system that reduces us all to individuals. Gone are mutual-aid societies, local credit unions, and even company pensions. We're all on our own now, masters of shrinking 401(k) accounts. We turn to credit cards in rough times, rather than sharing with family and neighbors. Standing alone with our tax cuts, we are all going down the tubes together. 

Despite our ignorance, the relics of the common good still speak from the past. It echoes in the common-man architecture of the New Deal: the fieldstone-and-mortar picnic shelters and lodges in our parks, the town halls and libraries across our nation. 

I had a great-uncle whose childhood was shattered by the Depression. His unemployed father drifted away, leaving his mother to raise him in poverty. He landed a job with the Civilian Conservation Corps, building retaining walls and shelters along the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park. It paid his mother's bills, but it also let him build something for the generations. At the end of his life he still lit up when he spoke of that work, and took joy when he met someone who had visited it. 

Common goods help us understand the common good. It's encouraging to hear Barack Obama proposing more than tax cuts to address the economic crisis: investments in our crumbling infrastructure and schools, national initiatives in clean energy, and energy independence. 

Obama has consistently offered a deeply Catholic vision of government and the common good. Perhaps he absorbed it in his work as a community organizer funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. It was masterfully expressed in his acceptance speech: "Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility – that's the essence of America's promise." "Government cannot solve all our problems, but it should do what we cannot do for ourselves." 

Curiously his campaign has not used this in Catholic outreach. Alas, perhaps it's because the common good is such a foreign language in America today. To win this election, and to govern in this time of crisis, Obama will have to throw his shoulder into three decades of impoverished thinking about government. Let's hope he succeeds. 

If you're not applauding, you're not paying attention. 

The second article was written by NCR editor-at-large Tom Roberts, and posted this past Friday, "White Catholic Support Grows for Obama": 

Within days of the general election, as the abortion debate flares in some Catholic circles, two prominent surveys show that Democratic candidate Barack Obama's support among white Catholics has grown significantly since September, and that less than a third of Catholic voters are making their decision based on the issue of abortion. 

According to a report released October 30 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, surveys show that support for Obama from white, non-Hispanic Catholics has grown from a 13 point deficit in late September to an eight-point lead in late October. 

The Catholic vote is a much-sought-after swing vote because Catholics regularly choose the winner of the popular vote, regardless of party. John Green, a senior fellow at Pew, said that the largest shift toward Obama came among white Catholic independents, "with only modest changes among white Catholics who identify as Republicans or Democrats." 

Green said that independent white Catholics may have been moved toward Obama by economic issues, the same factor accounting for growing support for Obama among other sectors of the population. 

According to Green, Catholics have swung between parties for the past 20 years depending on candidates and issues, "and they almost always end up on the winning side. A lot of analysts look at white Catholics as a key barometer of where the election is going." 

This year, the Catholic vote has been rather mobile. "Back in January 2007," said Green, in a long interview statement released by Pew, "a majority of white Catholics said they preferred a generic Democratic president over a generic Republican president. 

"Later in the year, when specific Republican and Democratic candidates were mentioned, white Catholics shifted around, sometimes favoring a Republican candidate and sometimes favoring a Democratic candidate. The recent shift among white Catholics toward the Democratic candidate fits well within this overall pattern of change." 

But this may not be the last of the switches. Green said he would not be surprised, for instance, if some white Catholics shift toward Republican John McCain on election day. 

Green speculated that Obama was able to attract white Catholics when John Kerry was unable to do so in 2004 for several reasons: the faltering economy; his comfort at talking about his faith; and the fact that he is conversant with the Catholic social tradition. 

He also said that Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq is one of the positions "white Catholics may find very cogent on religious grounds." He also credited the recent "revival of a 'religious left' in national politics. 

"A final difference between 2004 and 2008 may be the more intensive campaigning within the Catholic community on behalf of Obama. New organizations, such as Catholic Alliance for the Common Good, have been very active alongside older groups such as Pax Christi and Catholics for Choice." (See previous NCR stories on new Catholic groups.) 

(Note: I absolutely do not support or endorse Catholics for "Choice"; a good Catholic cannot be pro-abortion.) 

Still, for some Catholics, Obama's support for legal abortion is too large an impediment. 

While it is unknown whether this may be a year in which other issues, including the economy, will override Catholic objections to Obama's abortion position, polls seem to suggest that may be the case. 

In recent weeks a number of Catholic bishops (some observers put the number as high as 80) have made a major push to raise abortion as the primary issue on which Catholics should base their votes. The attempts by some who have written columns in their diocesan newspapers, or issued personal statements, appear to defy the point made in their collective pastoral statement, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, which rejects a single-issue approach to voting. 

According to a recently released poll by the Le Moyne College / Zogby International Contemporary Catholic Trends project, however, only 29 percent of Catholics say they would be unlikely to vote for a candidate who disagrees with them on abortion rights, but with whom they agree "on all issues except for abortion." 

According to Dr. Matt Loveland, Le Moyne sociologist, "In essence, less than a third of Catholic voters appear to vote solely on abortion attitudes; but those who do, tend to favor 'pro-life' candidates." According to the poll, said Loveland, "44 percent of Catholics believe a 'good Catholic' could not vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights, but that 53 percent say a good Catholic could." 

(The poll was a telephone survey of 1,000 people with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 points.) 

On a key Catholic social justice teaching, a keen concern for the poor (which some see as at odds with this year's political emphasis on the middle class), the survey showed that only 38 percent of Catholics agree, somewhat or strongly, that government policies should privilege the interests of the poorest Americans over middle- and upper-class Americans. Four percent were undecided, and 58 percent disagreed. 

"Church teaching on this issue seems to run counter to recent popular sentiment against 'spreading the wealth,' said Loveland, who added that "it looks like many lay Catholics agree with 'Joe the Plumber' on this issue." 

On other issues, the survey found that 60 percent polled believe a good Catholic could vote for candidates who support embryonic stem-cell research; 55 percent agreed good Catholics could vote for a candidate who supports the death penalty. 

"On the other hand," said the report, "majorities say that good Catholics should not vote for candidates who support same-sex marriage (54 percent), euthanasia (59 percent), and human cloning (76 percent)." 

For the record, I am opposed to embryonic stem-cell research, and likely to human cloning as well. On the issue of same-sex marriages… a bit more undecided. But more on these issues after this silly season is over.