Exclusive interview with Senator Barack Obama

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic presidential nominee, speaks to supporters during a campaign stop in Dayton, Ohio on Sept. 9. Senator Obama granted an exclusive interview with Catholic Digest. CNS photo by Matt Sullivan via Reuters

Why cover the election?
A letter from the Editor-in-Chief

Catholic Digest is primarily concerned with connecting Catholic spirituality and tradition to daily life. So why cover the election?

The U.S. bishops said it very well in their document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: “In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation. This obligation is rooted in our baptismal commitment to follow Jesus Christ and to bear Christian witness in all we do. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “It is necessary that all participate, each according to his position and role, in promoting the common good. This obligation is inherent in the dignity of the human person. … As far as possible citizens should take an active part in public life” (nos. 1913-1915).

We all sense how important this election is, in so many ways. And we all know how important the Catholic vote is. We all have an almost unlimited supply of sources of political news, from the national media outlets to the candidates’ websites, to those of their partisan supporters. As a nation we’re well covered by an avalanche of information — and sometimes misinformation.

But what we don’t see a lot is information about the candidates speaking directly to Catholics. How do they connect — or not — with the Church’s social and moral teachings? How can Catholics get a sense of the character of these two men? How would they make a case directly to Catholics on why we should vote for them?

That’s why Catholic Digest decided to do what most of our readers won’t have a chance to do: call them up and ask them. We aggressively pursued the Republican and Democratic campaigns for months and finally pinned them down so that you could hear these men speak directly to you, the Catholics of the United States of America.

Two more brief points:
First, we tried to be very fair and equal in our interviews. We don’t see it as our job to tell people how to vote. In this we again followed the lead of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops who say: “The Church is involved in the political process but is not partisan. The Church cannot champion any candidate or party.” The Church states forcefully the moral principles Catholics believe in and asks Catholics, and society in general, to be guided by those principles. We think that is a wise policy for us as well. So we presented the Church’s teachings that are crucial for this election through Archbishop Niederauer (“How to Vote Catholic”), and then let the candidates speak to Catholics for themselves.

Second, some readers have asked why Barack Obama answered some questions by e-mail. We greatly prefer phone or face-to-face interviews in all circumstances, but we knew from the beginning that how we got the interviews was not as important as asking the candidates to speak directly to our Catholic readers, and we were prepared to move ahead with phone or e-mail interviews, or a combination of both.

We got the McCain interview first. The McCain campaign was able to give us enough time on the phone with their candidate to get our questions answered.

We also conducted our interview with Mr. Obama by phone, but his campaign organizers were not able to give us as much time as Mr. McCain’s staff did, and we got off the phone with some questions unanswered. So, as we had planned from the beginning, we followed up by e-mail. And then, to be honest and fair to both candidates and to our readers, we noted with an asterisk all the questions Mr. Obama answered by e-mail, so that you would be able to judge those answers by a different standard.

It’s also important to say that if the situation had been reversed, and Mr. McCain’s campaign had given us less time and Mr. Obama’s campaign more, we would have asked the McCain camp to follow up by e-mail. That was our plan, and our goal was to be balanced and fair to both campaigns. Now we leave the judgments and the voting up to you.

May we all do our homework for this election and bring our faith to bear in our discernment, and may God give us the wisdom to choose wisely on November 4.

Dan Connors



Note: Questions preceded by an asterisk (*) were conducted by e-mail.

Catholic Digest: Hello, Senator, how are you today?
Obama: I’m doing great. How are you?

I’m doing well. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us today.
Obama: It’s my pleasure.

What role, if any, do you believe a president’s faith life should play in politics?
Obama: Well, I don’t think you can separate somebody’s faith life from the person. My Christian faith informs everything I do. It helped shaped my values and ideas, and I don’t think the president has to shy away from applying principles that are important to him or her from the work that needs to be done. Not to mention that my prayer life is very important to me. It strengthens me and helps guide me through the day. What I don’t think a president can do is to simply assert his or her religious beliefs to the exclusion of others in a representative democracy. We are a country of many faiths and viewpoints, and when we’re arguing in the public square it’s important for us to be able to translate our faith into a universal language.

What role has your own faith played in your work as a senator?
Obama: Well, as I said, my prayer life is important to me, and oftentimes it focuses me on the core values I want to live by and those things I’m willing to fight for even in difficult circumstances. I think when you’re in public life you need to have some sort of moral compass that allows you to sort through competing demands and interests.

Would you share an issue in which your faith played a role in your decision-making?
Obama: Let me give you an example of a principle that’s very important to me — the principle of empathy, which I believe is embodied in the Golden Rule and many of the precepts in the Bible. When I think about difficult issues, one of the first things I ask myself is, “How does the world look through the eyes of somebody else?” What would it be like to stand in the shoes of a worker who is struggling or a senior who doesn’t have the medicine they need? That helps orient you, it provides you some humility. It makes you aware that you don’t have all the answers, and that it’s very important to be able to get outside of your immediate interests and perspectives in order to make decisions that are good for the many and not just a few.

*In “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” from the USCCB, the bishops call for a rejection of “politics based on ‘powerful interests, partisan attacks, sound bites, and media hype,’” calling instead for “a different kind of political engagement.” Where do you draw the line in terms of what methods you’ll use in your campaign? Do you feel a responsibility to respond to actions of independent groups that may be launching smear campaigns against your opponent?
Obama: My campaign is about changing the divisive politics of Washington. This year, for example, through the most open platform process in history, we Democrats reached out to Republicans and Independents who hunger for a new direction, giving them a voice in crafting our policy agenda. There will always be missteps and you hope those can be minimized. But at the end of the day, I think many Americans will continue to respond to this movement for change because we are proving it can be done.
What are the top reasons American Catholics should vote for you in 2008?
Obama: I got my start as a community organizer working with mostly Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago that were struggling because the steel plants had closed. The Campaign for Human Development helped fund the project, and so very early on, my career was intertwined with the belief in social justice that is so strong in the Church. I’ve tried to apply the precepts of compassion and care for the vulnerable that are so central to Catholic teachings to my work, [such as in] making health care a right for all Americans — I was the sponsor in the state legislature for the Bernardin Amendment, named after Cardinal Bernardin, a wonderful figure in Chicago I had the opportunity to work with who said that health care should be a right. And in the United States Senate, (I was) working on issues such as immigration reform that would combine the principle that we’re a nation of laws with the notion that we are also all God’s children and that we have to open our hearts to those who are less fortunate than we are.

*Both you and your opponent have been criticized for changing your opinions on certain issues. When, in your opinion, should a politician change his or her mind on a given issue? How would you respond to voters who are wary that your changes of position are based on politics rather than new information or a genuine change of heart?
Obama: I’m willing to take principled stances despite how the political winds blow. And my positions on key issues in this campaign have been consistent throughout, such as my opposition to the war in Iraq, the need for universal health care, and an emphasis on fixing our economy for hardworking families. Leaders must be willing to listen to a range of views and then make the best call with the best information available. Does that mean they should ignore new information or realities? I don’t think so. And what we’ve seen over the last seven years is a disturbing trend where President Bush has stubbornly refused to acknowledge facts and evidence that contradict his positions, whether that’s his justification for our invasion of Iraq or his view that tax cuts for the wealthiest will help middle-class Americans.

*What measures would you take to help struggling Americans that Senator John McCain would not?
Obama: I will enact policies that strengthen America’s middle class. I will roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and instead enact permanent middle-class tax relief, including a $500 tax credit for 95 percent of American workers, a mortgage interest credit to help middle-class homeowners, and a health care plan that provides tax credits to moderate-income Americans to purchase insurance, and guarantees that no American will be turned away for a pre-existing illness. Senator McCain has proposed the same failed policies — tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations — that have led to the largest deficit in our nation’s history and a rising gap between rich and poor. I will expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour.

*How has your personal experience or the experiences of family and friends influenced your policy on issues of health care, poverty, and immigration?
Obama: I am here today because the American dream was realized for my family — because my grandfather got the chance to go to school on the GI Bill, buy a house through the Federal Housing Authority, and move his family to Hawaii — where my mother would go to college and one day fall in love with a young student from Kenya.
My experience and that of my family have deeply influenced my policy on issues of health care, immigration, and poverty. My mother died when she was 53 of ovarian cancer. And you know what she was spending her time thinking about in the last days of her life? She wasn’t thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality. She was spending her time thinking about whether or not the insurance company was going to pay her medical bills because she’d gotten sick right as she started a new job, and they started [saying] maybe this was a preexisting condition. So I know what it is like to watch a loved one suffer because of a broken health care system. It is wrong. It is not who we are. We will solve this crisis when I’m president.
With regards to immigration, America has nothing to fear from our newcomers. They have come here for the same reason that families have always come here, for the same reason that my own father came here from Kenya so many years ago — in the hope that here, in America, you can make it if you try.
Finally, lifting up impoverished families is something I’ve been doing since I entered public service. I was just two years out of college when I first moved to the South Side of Chicago. I was hired by a group of churches that were trying to deal with steel plant closures that had devastated the surrounding neighborhoods.
I am here because of the promise America holds and I am committed to safeguarding that dream for future generations.


Julie Rattey is managing editor of Catholic Digest.