> But the leap from "poorer people tend to be more religious" to
> "poorer people tend to be more religious BECAUSE THEY'RE BITTER" is,
> to say the least, a tenuous one.
This will be my final post for the evening - and this time, I'm not lying.
But I should note that Jonathan Gruber has found decidedly materialistic reasons for religiosity.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=731032
The specific income hike he determined was, IIRC, 10%.
Of course, I'm unsure how "religious market density" might work in some of the Pennsylvania regions Obama addressed. I've visited Appalachian towns that felt like they had 20 families and 30 Baptist churches.