Amidst digging into the Democratic Party's faith outreach effort for another piece, I came across a striking pre-2012 election voter preference survey from the Barna Group that forecast Barack Obama's support from evangelical voters could double in the 2012 election as compared to support Obama got from evangelicals in 2008, 11%. What happened ? Well, Obama's support from Catholic and minority evangelicals rose slightly, but his support from white Protestant evangelical and born-again Christians plummeted, from 26% in '08 to 20% in '012. Whoops: especially for the DNC's faith outreach effort.  

Here's a question for you: Is it possible to be one of the biggest losers and one of the biggest winners at the same time? If folks like Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch Brothers, and, fill in the name of your favorite Tea Party booster, lost big on Election Day, no one lost any bigger than the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez. As one of the Republican Party's go-to guys in the Hispanic community, Rodriguez did a one-heck-of-a-Brownie-like job bringing home the Hispanic vote.

Nevertheless, Rodriguez's lack of immediate success may have insured that he will be an indispensible player for the Party for years to come, as many of his conservative comrades appear ready to moonwalk on immigration.  

Dear Rev. Rodriguez and the leadership of the NHCLC,

On November 9, I published an article on Rev. Rodriguez and the NHCLC. In this article I noted that the Rev. Derrick Harkins, head of Faith Outreach for the Democratic National Committee, is listed and pictured at the NHCLC website as a member of your Advisory Board. Shortly after posting this article I received a public comment from Rev. Harkins, followed up by a personal email from him, both attesting to his shock that he was being publicized as a supporter of the NHCLC.

I'm not really a fan of professional or college sports and don't normally look at the Sports page of the newspaper. But a recent New York Times piece about Liberty University's football program did catch my eye.

The Lynchburg, Va.-based university founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell has an ambitious agenda. As The Times put it, "[T]he plan is for college football - big-time,  always-on-television college football - to do for evangelical Christians in the 21st century what Notre Dame football did for Roman Catholics in the 20th."

There was a time when Rev. Samuel Rodriguez was one of the darlings Inside the Beltway.  He was one of the new moderate evangelicals who were said to be displacing the bad old Christian Right; ringing-in the end of the culture wars; and inaugurating a shining new era of common ground.

But it was not to be.

An article I did that originally ran at my personal blog on  Friday, November 9, detailing the story of Samuel Rodriguez and highlighting the many individuals and institutions that have worked with him, has received a quick and significant reply from the Rev. Derrick Harkins.

In the wake of Mitt Romney's defeat and the historically low support he received from Hispanics it is high time that attention be given not only to Karl Rove, but to "the Hispanic Karl Rove", the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez.

Like a lot of you, I got way too many political calls in the lead-up to the election. In fact, I stopped answering the phone.

I made an exception just days before Nov. 6 when my caller I.D. announced that Ralph Reed was calling. Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and now head of the Faith & Freedom Coalition (FFC), is a longtime Religious Right hack, and I wanted to hear his spiel. I raced to the phone. (In case you're wondering, I have attended FFC conferences in the past, and that's why I'm on Reed's call list.)

Following are more examples of Christian Right voter guides found by voters inside Pennsylvania polling locations. State law requires that campaign signs, individuals campaigning and distribution of electioneering media must be kept at least ten feet outside the entrance of the polling place. This post includes voter's guides from Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition and Life PAC of Southwestern Pennsylvania.  Photos follow.

Well, it's not a single picture, it's three pictures (scroll down a few paragraphs to view), and each is an animated GIF. Here's the context:

One of the stunning upset victories of the November 6, 2012 election came when Maine and Maryland voters passed ballot initiatives legalizing same-sex marriage. Another ballot initiative legalizing same-sex marriage is expected to pass in the state of Washington. And a ballot initiative in Minnesota that would have banned same-sex marriage was defeated, 52% to 48%. Topping things off, Wisconsin voters elected the first openly gay U.S. Senator, Tammy Baldwin. Compared to the 2008 election, when ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage passed in California, Florida, and Arizona, it was a stunning reversal.

The Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania spent over eight million dollars in the 2012 election cycle, including paying for this flier. President Obama won Pennsylvania by a margin of 52% to 46.8%. I previously posted an example of Christian Right voters guides found in Pennsylvania polling locations on election day.  More coming.

The photo at right is the polling place for Pittsburgh's 19th Ward, District 6, at Grace Episcopal Church on Sycamore Street. [This church is a member of the Anglican Church in North America and no longer Episcopal. See author's note at end of article.] Voters enter the church and then must pass the table shown as they enter the voting area.  A stack of 2012 Voter's Guide with the words "AN IMPARTIAL, NON-PARTISAN GUIDE TO THE NOVEMBER 6TH ELECTION" are displayed on the table.

The guide is from the Pennsylvania Family Council, the legislative arm of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, the state's affiliate of the Family Research Council (FRC) and Focus on the Family.  I'm also following reports of other material at polling sites in Western Pennsylvania, including from Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition and from Life PAC of Southwestern Pennsylvania.