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Steven Waldman

We numbers junkies thank Laurie Goodstein at the New York Times for doing a special slice-and-dice on the exit polls that gives us this fascinating nugget: Obama doubled his support among evangelicals (Obamagelicals, as we like to call them) ages 18-29 (getting 32% compared to 16% in 2004). What the Times didn’t mention is that…

Well that didn’t take long. Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun and founder of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, has the honor of being the first member of the “religious left” to lambast the new President. Lerner is outraged at the selection of Rahm Emanuel, whom he says has a “long history of militarist ideology.”…

During his interview with Sarah Palin, James Dobson of Focus on the Family described a conference call he had with leading preachers. He said: “It was just incredible thing…the spirit of the Lord was on that call and we were rather boldly asking for a miracle with regard to the election this year.” Palin expressed…

By Mark DeMoss I am an evangelical Southern Baptist who worked for a Mormon candidate in the primaries and voted yesterday for John McCain. According to exit polls some 72 percent of white evangelicals joined me in a losing effort. While there is much we can learn from this historic election–I’ll propose just four lessons.…

Turnout was up more among Born Again Christians than among youths…. In Colorado, the base of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, the percentage of evangelicals supporting the Democrat doubled since 2004. New voters as a percentage of the electorate in 2004: 11% New voters in 2008: 11%… Obama won Michigan (once a battleground) by…

There was indeed an increase in evangelical turnout. They accounted for 23% of the electorate in 2004; 26% this time. That was supposed to fuel a McCain upset. But Obama did, in the end, attract a meaningful number of evangelicals — more than wiping out the surge of Born Agains voting for McCain. Obama won…

The final exit polls pointed to a stunning conclusion: one ingredient to Obama’s victory was improvement among the most devoutly religious voters. Obama got 43% of weekly church-goers vs. 55% for McCain. In 2004, Bush got 61% vs. 39% for Kerry. What this means is that Bush beat Kerry by roughly 27 million among weekly…

By my count, about 118,343,530 votes have been counted so far (95% of the precincts). In 2004, 121,480,019 voted. Am I missing something, or did Obama win despite NOT dramatically increasing turnout? And what about all those long lines??? Surely, I must have missed something… UPDATE: Politico is reporting (and many other blogs are picking…

Obama’s speech was so different from Bush’s or Clinton’s when they won. He did not seem jubilant. He seemed touched, moved, somber and deeply humbled…. Obama was won Virginia, the Capitol of the Confederacy… He’s the first non-Southern Democrat to win the White House in 48 years…. The first non-Southern Democrat to win more than…
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