Atheism: The electorate's last hurdle

A historic election. Two once seemingly insurmountable obstacles, being a women and being an African-American, now have taken their respective positions along side being a Catholic as once unelectable qualities.

These breakthroughs are evidence that the electorate can evolve and, indeed, expand its collective tolerances. But are there limits to this evolution?

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama struggle for the right to be called the first, there sits a particular quality that seems light years away from even being considered electable - atheism.

There are several politicians who consider themselves atheists, but Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) is the nations first member of Congress who has openly admitted his nontheism. Stark was outed by a constituent who entered his name into a contest sponsored by the Secular Coalition for America, which was looking for the highest elected official who considered themselves to be non-believers. For their effort, the constituent received $1,000.

Despite the efforts of Secular Coalition, Stark was the only one of 535 federal politicians forthright enough to admit that he had nontheist beliefs.

This reluctance of atheists to run for public office, or for politicians to admit their atheist views, is well founded. According to a recent gallup poll, less than half of the country said they would vote for an atheist candidate, even if they deemed that the person was well qualified otherwise.

This presents an interesting dichotomy. Over 70 percent of American's agree that their should be a separation of church and state, that's good. But, those same Americans refuse to elect a president who says that as commander-and-chief their decisions will not be influenced by religious underpinnings, confusing.

It is an interesting observation. People inherently want to claim that the church and state divide is a good thing, almost reactionary. But for many there appears to be a similar divide between what they practice and what they preach.

Because democracy is a function of free citizens electing public servants, the reluctance of these citizens to vote for an atheist president, in essence, takes a wrecking ball to the wall that has always, at least in theory, stood between religion and the state, thus creating a defacto collaboration between the two.

Noted atheist and apparent supporter of all things ironic, Ron Reagan, the son of former President Ronald Reagan, sums up the reaction that any openly atheist would receive if they were to run for president:

KING: Do you ever think of running for office?

REAGAN: No...

KING: You've got a pretty good name going in.

REAGAN: It seems to work for some people.

KING: Wouldn't hurt you.

REAGAN: No, I'm not really cut out to be a politician. You know that I sometimes don't know when to shut up. That could be a drawback. I'm an atheist. So there you go right there. I can't be elected to anything because polls all say that people won't elect an atheist.

The buzz surrounding the '08 election is that Washington is broken and this is the most important election of our lifetime. This is interesting. If our political system is so broke; corruption, waste, bathroom rendezvous, could it not be deduced that a system that elects only 'religious' men might be the problem? You would be hard pressed to find a voter who would not say that change is needed, again, reactionary. But what does real change mean? If the faithful screwed it up, why shouldn't the non-faithful at least be given a legitimate chance to help fix it? Whatever it is.

40 percent in Michigan support uncertainty over Clinton

So, evidently Hillary Clinton was not running by herself. Of the 592,798 Michigan Democrats who took part in the state's primary, 236,723 (40%) voted for uncommitted, rather than for Clinton. For an explanation of the Michigan primary and uncommitted voters go here.

This in many ways represents a defeat for Clinton. Not only did 40 percent of voters select uncommitted, essentially conceding the influence they have over their vote, but another 3,835 Michigan Democrats voted for Chris Dodd, a candidate no longer in the race.

This only furthers the argument that Clinton is unelectable. It has been stated and restated that in a general election 50 percent of voters said they would not vote for Clinton, but what does it mean when over 40 percent of Democrats wont?

Some speculate that Clinton's lead in Michigan was so large that had Obama and Edwards been on the ballot, Clinton would have still prevailed. Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics, estimates that had the other two front-runners been on the ballot, 30 percent of the uncommitted vote would have gone to Obama and 10 percent to Edwards, still giving Clinton a comfortable lead.

But because no candidate, including Clinton, campaigned in the state, these numbers are speculative at best.

The 40 percent uncommitted is an impressive number, but in Clinton's defense, these numbers were probably inflated by the efforts of groups advocating the uncommitted vote and powerful state Democrats. Detroiters for Uncommitted and Michiganders for Uncommitted, both Obama backers, actively informed Michigan Democrats about their ability to vote uncommitted. And Rep. John Conyers, also an Obama supporter, urged voters to select uncommitted.

In the absence of a real Clinton campaign, these pseudo-Edwards and Obama campaigns really resonated with Michigan Democrats, thus 40 percent choose uncommitted.

However, despite this, the results in Michigan do represent a bit of egg on the face of the Clinton campaign, nothing earth shattering, but an embarrassment nonetheless.

A video put out by 'Mr. Uncommitted'

A list of journalists who gave campaign cash

In July MSNBC compiled a list of journalists who donated to various political campaigns from 2004 through the first quarter of 2007. Overall, 147 reporters, editors, producers, critics and a plethora of others appeared on the list, contributing over $300,000.

Some have legitimate arguments that their contributions are justifiable. Food critics, health reporters, technology correspondents, travel columnists and other non-politics, non-news positions, do not seem as ominous when making appearances on political contribution lists.

But others are in blatant violation of journalisms code of objectivity, and they know it. When the Muskegon Chronicle's Terry Judd was confronted with questions regarding $1,900 given to the Democratic National Committee, between 2004 through 2006, and $2,000 given to John Kerry in March 2004, both under his name, he was blunt:

"You caught me," Judd said. "I guess I was just doing it on the side." Judd was a reporter and chief of the newspaper's Grand Haven bureau.

But what immediately jumps off the page is the fact that nearly 90 percent of contributors gave to candidates, organizations, or causes that favored Democratic canidates. Of the 147 listed, 132 contributed to Democrats, 13 contributed to Republicans and 2 contributed to both Democratic and Republican causes and candidates.

Although, many of those who contribute did not cover politics directly, it does give fodder to those who claim the media is a mouth piece of the left. Also of note, not one of the media members listed contributed to Independent canidates. Could this give insight into why smaller and independent canidates are often excluded from debates and find it very difficult to get any sort of press coverage?

Although, vastly outnumbered by journalists giving to Democrats, Republican media members gave more per capita. The average given to Republican canidates and causes was $7,850, while that number is $1,430.72 on the Democratic side.

Here is a breakdown of major broadcast and print organizations. Go here for the complete findings of the investigation.

On the broadcast side:

ABC: 3 contributors; $7,350
CBS: 5 contributors; $7,000
CNN: 1 contributor; $500
Fox News/affiliates: 4 contributors; $8,850
MSNBC: 1 contributor; $4,200

On the print side:

The Wall Street Journal: 3 contributors; $2,300
The New York Times: 3 contributors; $9,185
Los Angeles Times: 4 contributors; $5,250
New York Daily News: 2 contributors; $2,404
The Washington Post: 1 contribution; $250
The Chicago Trbune: 2 contributors; $2,200