Could the Rapture Talk Tip the Election to Obama?

Harold Camping's prediction that Saturday is the date of the Christian Rapture could throw the election to Obama, regardless of whether Camping is right or wrong.

Based on a mysterious code that Camping himself derived from random parts of the Bible, Camping has divined that the hidden message from God is that the Rapture — the day when all of God's chosen Christians are taken up to heaven, leaving the rest of us to suffer for five months before our eventual demise — will take place this weekend.

The theory has taken on quite a life of its own. As of lunchtime Friday, it was by far and away the most searched term on the internet. Google's trends page reported that five of the top ten searches right now deal with Camping, the rapture, or Saturday's May 21 date. Not bad press for a man who has already wrongly predicted the end of the world once before.

Setting aside the placing of odds on whether or not Camping is completely off his rocker, the entire fiasco has implications far more important than what may or (more likely) may not happen this weekend. Unwittingly, Camping's self-aggrandizing media push toward this Rapture event may very well be one of the events that moves the re-election campaign of President Obama from “maybe” to “sure winner”.

First off, if the Rapture does happen, and millions of Christians suddenly disappear from the Earth, Obama would be a shoo-in for re-election. Christians who attended church at least once a week voted for John McCain in 2008 by a margin of 55% to 43%, according to New York Times exit polling data. That voter pool is presumably the first to get drafted by God in the event of any Rapture, whether Saturday or in the near term.

Depending on the number of people taken, as well as which states they are removed from, several states that went for McCain might be in play for Obama. Missouri, which went for McCain by a slim margin, and Georgia, which went for McCain by 5%, would be the leading contenders to flip to Obama.

Secondly, the Rapture might take some of the few remaining Republican nominees out of the running for the election. Mitt Romney, for example, is the current front-runner, and would almost certainly find himself skyward in the event of a Rapture, as would Tim Pawlenty. Newt Gingrich might be the last man standing and win the nomination by default.

Consider some political options if and when the Rapture does not occur. First, when it doesn't happen, those who looked forward to being taken up to Heaven are going to be incredibly disappointed. More importantly, they're going to have to sheepishly return to their daily lives, their old neighbors, and everyone else they assumed were not going to make the cut. This could culturally separate some truly crazy, paranoid folks from more mainstream Christians. Considering the role that religion plays in voting patterns in American life right now, it's entirely possible that more moderate religious folks are turned off by religious extremism and move leftward in their voting patterns. That would be a net gain for Obama.

Lastly, the 24-hour news cycle has created a world where important topics quickly become important and then, even more rapidly, grow stale. By 2012, people may be fed up with the religion talk dominating the media. That would leave them in no mood to focus on more religious-centered, social-conservative issues by the next election.

Even a 2% downturn in social conservative voters has the chance to doom any Republican nominee. Removing social issues from the campaign might take down those numbers by double that — a disaster in battleground states and an absolute golden opportunity for Democrats in the Bible Belt states, as well as in the Southwest. Wyoming and Idaho will probably vote GOP no matter what happens.

Ironically, by focusing so much on the coming of Jesus, Harold Camping may have accidentally guaranteed the re-election of the savior of the left-wing, President Barack Obama.