Other explanations for Obama's "free pass"
by
michiganfan
01/08/2008, 10:53 AM #
As an Atheist supporter of Obama, i can tell you there are other explanations for the free pass given to him on the issue of his church.
- Rose-colored glasses. You are naturally going to give the candidate you support some liberties that you wouldn't give the other candidates. This is particularly true when you perceive the election to be crucially important, as well as when you believe the other candidates to represent disastrous outcomes. For most Obama supporters, myself included, both of these conditions are true.
- His politics. The other main reason why people are willing to give Obama a free pass on his religious affiliations is that his politics don't bear the taint of his religion. He is religious, but he is not running on a religious platform. He is courting the religious voters, but he is only doing so in the same way that Bill Clinton did. He wants to show that he is a member of their community, but he is not (as far as I can tell) catering his policies to match their religious/sectarian desires like Huckabee, Ashcroft, and Lieberman have done.
While your general observations about the existence of a praise-and-worship stereotype of the black community are mostly correct, I don't believe that this stereotype is the reason behind the "free pass" given to Obama.
