Latino Protestant support for the Republican ticket this year plummeted nearly half that of the 2004 election, a new survey found.
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(Photo: AP Images / Jae C. Hong)Xavier Rivas, a Republican activist working on John McCain's Nevada Leadership Team, looks through the window of a campaign office for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., Friday, Sept. 28, 2008, in Henderson, Nev. The man who once risked his career on an immigration reform bill that was embraced by Hispanics is now struggling to win these same voters, and falling perilously below the level of support that helped lift President Bush to the White House. The candidate who won nearly 70 percent of Hispanic voters in his last bid for Senate in border-state Arizona is watching a first-term Illinois senator run away with those voters.
Only 33.6 percent of Latino Protestant registered voters plan to vote for Republican presidential nominee John McCain compared to 50.4 percent for Democrat Barack Obama, according to a survey, sponsored by the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Faith in Public Life, and other groups.
This 17 point difference favoring Obama represents a dramatic shift from 2004 when President George W. Bush solidly won the Latino Protestant vote, securing 63 percent of its support
"This poll shows that the pendulum of the Protestant Hispanic electorate has swung towards the Democratic Party,” observed Jesse Miranda, of the Jesse Miranda Center for Hispanic Leadership, during the press briefing on Thursday. “However, this energy can shift in the opposite direction unless there is support of what is important in terms of the interests and concerns of the largest minority in this country. This should be a clarion call to the next U.S. president."
About 10 percent of the Latino Protestant segment is still undecided, according to the survey.
The issue of immigration was a major factor for this group’s swing towards the Democratic Party. Immigration was nearly on par with abortion in importance when determining who Latino Protestants would vote for.
The survey found that 70.8 percent of this group believe immigration reform is an “extremely” or “very” important factor in choosing a candidate to support. For the abortion issue, 74.8 percent gave the same response.
Both these issues have higher priority to Latino Protestants than the issue of gay marriage (55.8 percent).
“The Biblical mandate to welcome the immigrant could not be clearer and we draw our values from our Bibles,” commented the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. “This poll powerfully demonstrates that immigration is a profoundly religious issue for Hispanic evangelicals. We will vote our faith and we will vote our values. It's time that all candidates take notice.”
More than three-quarters (76.8 percent) of respondents say that their religious beliefs are important in influencing their views on immigration.
Respondents say they feel both parties still need to improve on their response to the immigration issue.
A majority says they have heard public officials speak negatively about immigrants (62.2 percent). The negative rhetoric was most likely associated with both parties (43.4 percent), then Republicans (40.5 percent), and a slim margin associated the negative rhetoric only with Democrats (7.7 percent).
“Yesterday’s [presidential] debate demonstrates that both parties find it difficult to address an issue that lays hidden under the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ canopy,” said Rodriguez. “In other words, the proverbial elephant in the room as it applies in the 2008 presidential election is no other than immigration reform.”
Hispanic Protestant leaders, during the press conference, described the Latino Protestant vote as the “quintessential swing vote” because they defy stereotypes associated with faith-based voters, yet still say their religious conviction plays an influential role in who they will vote for. Continue >>
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I really think that the good people often fail to understand evil. Like John McCain, he is honorable, tells the truth, and his opponet is arrogant, a liar, and seeks to kill the unborn.
God made the mothers womb to be a safe haven for a growing child (whom has its own DNA at the moment of conception). And we vote in people who want to kill Gods creation in its safe haven, and we call ourselves Christians? Slavery of all kinds will never end as long as we are slaves to the destruction of our own children AND their mothers.
As to God using wicked people to bring judgment....I thought He had already done that to us with George Bush.
Americans are certainly suffering now from the incompetence and misdeeds of this president.
SqueakyWheel, given the costs you've cited, I can only fantasize about the horror and revulsion about the costs of the military adventure in Iraq that has resulted in the deaths of well over 4,000 US military members and a few hundred-thousand Iraqi citizens, all because of vain personal interests that were foisted upon a horribly gullible American public.
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And John McCain wants to continue that expenditure for at least another decade. Does that recognition keep you awake at night?
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What studies has Movement for a Better American conducted about the costs of health care for the next four or five decades for young Americans that have suffered brain damage and post-traumatic stress syndrome as a consequence of combat actions in Iraq and Afghanistan?
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Please tell us about those studies.
For those who must vote with their pocketbooks, then consider this:
Abortion: $35 Trillion Drag on the Economy
Researcher Says Abortion is $35 Trillion Drag on Economy
Contact: Dennis Howard, Movement for a Better America, 973-895-7367, mbaforlife@gmail.com
MT. FREEDOM, NJ, October 17 /Christian Newswire/ -- "The 50.5 million surgical abortions since 1970 have cost the U.S. an astonishing $35 trillion in lost GDP," a leading pro-life population researcher declared here.
However, he added, "If you include all the babies lost to IUDs, RU-486, sterilization, and abortifacients, the number climbs to $70 trillion!"
Dennis Howard, President of the Movement for a Better America, has been researching the economic impact of abortion since 1995. The estimates are based on GDP per capita per year times the cumulative number of abortions since 1970.
Howard has been warning since 1997 that the US faced a major financial crisis based on ongoing demographic trends. He may be the only writer to correctly predict today's crisis.
In 1997, he wrote: "I see little hope that we can avoid an eventual crash on Wall Street that will make the 1930's looking like cashing in your cards after a bad game of Monopoly®."
He even gave percentages as to when a crash would happen. He wrote then: "I'd give it a 50% chance of happening by the year 2000, an 80% chance by the year 2010, and a 100% chance of happening by 2020."
He also predicted: "It will last longer than the Great Depression, and if it takes a war to get out of it - as happened with World War II - America as we know it may not survive."
That was three years before the market top in 2000. Even Alan Greenspan, who coined the term "irrational exuberance," only raised it as a question - not a warning or a prediction.
Howard concedes his forecasts are controversial. "Far too many people look on abortion as some kind of free lunch. You pay your money and the deed is done. Out of sight, out of mind."
He indicated that his is a much more conservative approach than used by government agencies like the EPA. That agency uses an "estimated statistical life" as a benchmark for its cost/benefit analysis of new regulations.
A typical ESL averages about $7.8 million per life. Using that standard, Howard said, the cost for all abortions to date would be more than $390 trillion dollars - or 11 times higher than his estimates.
http://www.movementforabetteramerica.org
I see nothing in this article that explains the age breakdown of the participants.
This is very important since younger Latino Protestants may very well be following the younger more liberal national trend towards Obama.
This would also be important because it would show that younger liberal Christians continue to follow after secular trends as opposed to holding to true Christian values.
IHS, The problem is, Christians are not voting According to the Bible. They are voting their pocketbook or other issues, God's standard is second place.
We will answer for that. God is going to hold people accountable.
Why is it that our own Protestant Hispanics are favoring Obama, while Catholic Hispanics overwhelmingly are voting for McCain.
I am a McCain supporter. As a Pastor in training what are we not doing or saying to change their minds?
There were times in the old testament when God would use wicked people to bring judgement or correction on a people, Maybe,just maybe God will allow obama to be elected, so that He can use him to bring judgment or correction to America.
Just a possibility, just a maybe, Pray not, but maybe.
I suspect in the coming years that we will really need to emphasize our prayer time, together, alone, in church, at our bedside; EVERYWHERE, on our knees in the coming years if we want God to NOT give up this nation. We should be doing it now, anyway; God knows I'm as guilty as any lukewarm Christian ... and a few fervent ones ;) But the future looks pretty grim right now in the way of our morality.
I don't think [pro-life] people really know or understand that Obama wants to make abortion a constitutional right. He wants to make federally legalized partial-birth abortion a reality. Do pro-choice advocates really understands that this procedure involves killing a baby right up to 9 months ... while it's partially extracted from it's mother's womb ... only it's head is not extracted??? Search for "partial birth abortion" on YouTube.
I recall Obama saying during the last debate that he would love to spend the last few days focusing on the economy. It sure sounded like he's focused ... until I realized that it would mean he could simply avoid every other aspect of his character, which still remains suspect.
God help us.
As a Christian voter I WILL NEVER forget the plight of the torture and murder of the unborn. Obama supports this and that makes him guilty as the doctor performing it and the woman asking for it.
Vital issues like the right to life, and the sanctity of marriage, should never take a back seat to immigration. God calls us to uphold righteousness no matter where we're living. Voting for Obama simply because he favors open borders, disregarding his adamant and radical views on abortion, infanticide and gay rights is not a fair exchange.
If the Lord punished Israel because of the innocent blood they'd shed, how much more is He not going to judge all those who support abortion for any reason?
Jer 7:6, 7 {if} you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
All of these are important, not just one of them.