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A Political Action Committee overseen by the director of religious outreach for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign is running an ad on Christian radio defending presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

The ad will run starting today on radio stations in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Obama speaks about national service this morning. Colorado Springs is the home of Focus on the Family, whose conservative evangelical leader, James Dobson, suggested last week that Obama is "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology."

"You know it's an election year when certain people start grabbing headlines by attacking the faith of Presidential candidates," says a narrator in the spot. "With all these stones being cast at Senator Obama, it can be hard to know what to believe. But in Luke, Jesus taught us that we must listen to what a man says because 'out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks.'"

Obama then offers what the narrator characterizes as "words from [his] heart":

"I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives," he says. "Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth."

Listen:



The group behind the spot, The Matthew 25 Network, held a fundraiser in June in which it said it was looking to reach out to "targeted religious communities that are key to electoral success for Senator Obama, including Catholics, moderate evangelicals, Hispanic Catholics and Protestants,” according to the New York Times.

Ever since the 2006 midterm elections, there have been suggestions that the influence of Christian conservatives on U.S. presidential politics is waning.

But today Focus on the Family founder James Dobson said the Iowa caucus results suggested otherwise.

Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, easily won the GOP vote in Iowa. Roughly 80 percent of his supporters identified themselves as born again or evangelical Christians.

`The results of the Iowa caucuses reveal that conservative Christians remain a powerful force in American politics. That had to be a great shock to those on the far left,'' Dobson said in a release, according to the Associated Press.

The AP reports that Dobson was critical of "media elites" for writing off Christian conservatives and suggested Huckabee's win "`was evidence of an energized and highly motivated conservative community."

The national influence of Christian conservatives in this presidential cycle is still yet to be seen, however. And a tough test for Huckabee will come in New Hampshire, the next state on the voting calendar. It is expected that a far smaller percentage of GOP voters in the Granite State will self-identify as evangelical Christians compared to Iowa, were entrance polls found that almost 60 percent of GOP caucus-goers described themselves as evangelical.

Back in 2004, there was a mini-movement to draft Judge Roy Moore as a presidential candidate. Moore, the former head of the Alabama Supreme Court, garnered media attention for insisting that the Ten Commandments be displayed at the Alabama State Judicial Building. He eventually lost that battle, and his post, but he became a hero to a number of conservatives for his efforts – and was reportedly approached by the right-wing Constitution Party about becoming their candidate.

Four years later, certain elements of the Republican base are considering backing a Moore-like candidate once again. And while the Republican nominee in 2004 – George W. Bush – had a good reputation among those who might otherwise break for a figure like Moore, the 2008 Republican nominee might have a much harder time fighting off such a challenge. Especially if that nominee is Rudy Giuliani.

As the New York Times reported today, James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and other influential conservative Christians have vowed to consider backing a third-party candidate if the former New York mayor gets the Republican nod. Giuliani has a lot of differences with those on the religious right, chief among them his (somewhat muddled but relatively liberal) position on abortion.

That could mean an opening for some of the lesser-known candidates in the Republican field, among them Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who have both courted evangelicals. The latter, an ordained minister, was identified by both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich yesterday as the only viable "dark horse" in the Republican field. If Huckabee loses out in the Republican race, a third-party candidacy, with the backing of the religious right, is not inconceivable.

As for the Giuliani campaign, a spokesperson told CBS News' Ryan Corsaro that while they are aware of the statements made by Dobson and other conservative Christian leaders over the weekend, polls show that Christian voters back Giuliani.

A Gallup poll released on September 28th shows Giuliani leading among conservatives, weekly churchgoers, Protestants, Christians and Catholics.

The spokesperson says Giuliani’s stances on terrorism and fiscal conservatism are proving more important to Christian voters than social issues.