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Only 51% of Americans say Obama's religious beliefs are different from their own.

I'd say that's an amazingly low number. And yet Politico frets that this will make it hard for him to "reconnect" with us. We live in a pluralistic society. What does it matter how close a politician's religious beliefs are to our own? But assuming it does, it's impressive that so many American's feel that they more or less share Obama's religious faith (whatever it is):

The post-election survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute offers a glimpse into the challenge facing Obama as he tries to reconnect with those voters who have soured on him: 51 percent say his religious beliefs are different while 40 percent say he shares similar views.

And there?s a strong overlap between those who think he holds different religious views and those who disapprove of him. Only a fifth of Democrats say his religious beliefs are different from their own while 78 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of independents say so.

This is more of a test of whether we generally like Obama or not. What does "similar" even mean? If you like him and you believe in God and think he probably does too, you'll say his beliefs are similar. If you don't like him and think he's not a sufficiently avid churchgoer you'll say he's not.

Full post as published by Althouse on November 18, 2010 (boomark / email).