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At Slate, Jamelle Bouie argues that the optimism of last week's Democratic convention was rooted in the experiences and rhetoric of the black church. I am not sure I follow his argument: Is pluralism a distinguishing feature of the black church? But, he is on to something.
Relatedly, Todd VanDerWerff at Vox,makes the argument that the Democrats proved that Christianity is a liberal religion. Of course, it is no more a liberal religion than it is a conservative religion, but it was nice to see some restoring of the balance. And, it was good to see Democratic strategists grasping, however manipulatively, that the language and the logic of faith is ignored at one's peril in America.
Politico is running a very, very important series that looks at how each swing state is playing out in this year's election. In Pennsylvania, Obama won Luzerne County by five points in 2012 but a recent poll has Trump up by a whopping 23 points. A 28 point swing. In Ohio, something similar is happening in Mahoning County around Youngstown, which Obama carried with 63 percent of the vote four years ago but is looking like Trump country this time round.
