Democrats Keep The Faith
Presidential Hopefuls Show More Zeal In Courting Religious Voters Than Their GOP Rivals
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Sen. Barack Obama , D-Ill., speaks to the St. Mark Cathedral congregation on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during a birthday celebration at the Harvey, Ill., church, Jan. 15, 2007. (AP)
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Pastor Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life," speaks during a taping of "Meet the Press" at the NBC studios December 15, 2006 in Washington, DC. (GETTY)
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Religion And Politics
Bob Schieffer says that in the upcoming presidential election voters should not base their decisions on the candidate's religion, but on their political beliefs.
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Romney On Being Mormon
Mitt Romney talks with Bob Schieffer about his Mormon faith and the role it plays in his presidential campaign. Romney also addresses why Evangelical Christians may have a problem with his religion.
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The Candidates And Religion
Dan Gilgoff, Contributing Editor of U.S. News & World Report and author of "The Jesus Machine," takes a look at the 2008 Presidential candidates and discusses whether or not their religious beliefs could hurt them on election day.
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2008 Presidential Hopefuls
Profiles and the latest news on the Democrats and Republicans running for the White House.
In the 2004 election, according to exit polls, 78 percent of white evangelicals voted for George W. Bush. The president's deft use of religious language, socially conservative policy positions and unprecedented outreach program had galvanized highly religious voters, and there was serious talk of a permanent Republican majority built on their support.
The Democratic Party, meanwhile, had been represented by John Kerry, whose campaign was dogged by the perception that it did not take faith outreach seriously and who struggled to convince voters that his religious rhetoric was genuine.
Four years later, the script hasn't exactly flipped. But the shift when it comes to religious rhetoric has been remarkable. In the 2008 election cycle, it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who seem most comfortable discussing their faith - and reaching out to the faithful.
Consider the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination. Sen. Barack Obama has touted his "personal relationship with Jesus Christ," and said he is “confident that we can create a kingdom right here on Earth." He has organized "faith forums," says he seeks to be an "instrument of God," and speaks of his religious conversion following community organizing in Chicago-area churches.
Along with conservative Sen. Sam Brownback, he spoke about fighting AIDS at evangelical pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California. And an Obama "gospel tour" in South Carolina, though not without controversy, drew thousands of black evangelicals over the weekend.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has been less outspoken than Obama about her Methodist faith - which is perhaps why, among the frontrunners, she is seen as the least religious, according to a recent Pew survey. But behind the scenes, Clinton, who is thought to be deeply religious by those who know her, has been engaged in an impressive outreach program to win over religious voters.
Last year, Clinton hired Burns Strider, a highly-regarded white evangelical born and raised in Mississippi, to be her faith outreach director. She and Strider, who headed up the Democrats' outreach program following the 2004 election, are casting Clinton's faith as integral to her life and her policy positions on issues like genocide in Darfur. It's a strategy made more viable by the rise of pastors like Warren and Bill Hybels, who talk more about issues like poverty than the battles of the culture war.
Clinton has also done significant outreach among Iowa's relatively large Methodist community, according to Dan Gilgoff, politics editor at Beliefnet.com. "She doesn't talk about it as blatantly, but her campaign reveals a very robust and sophisticated effort," says Gilgoff.
John Edwards, a Southern Baptist-turned-United Methodist, had a high-profile stumble with religious voters when two of his bloggers were discovered to have made comments before they joined his campaign that Catholics found offensive. But his populist message dovetails nicely with the new evangelicalism of Warren and Hybels - Edwards casts fighting poverty as a moral issue - and he has spoken eloquently of finding his faith following the death of his son in 1996. He has also been reaching out to progressive religious leaders.
The Republican frontrunners, meanwhile, have struggled to win over deeply religious voters looking for a candidate to rally around. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, has socially moderate positions on issues such as gay rights and abortion that are anathema to traditional evangelicals, as well as a personal history that doesn't play well with the group. A Roman Catholic, Giuliani says his personal religious beliefs are private and generally declines to discuss them, though he often invokes God on the campaign trail.
In March, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention criticized Giuliani for how he handled his divorce from his second wife. "I mean, this is divorce on steroids," Land told the Associated Press. "To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children. That's rough. I think that's going to be an awfully hard sell, even if he weren't pro-choice and pro-gun control."
Late last month, a group of prominent Christian conservatives threatened to back a third-party candidate if Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee.
Giuliani's rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, has spotlighted his family and traditional values over the course of his campaign, presumably to draw a contrast with Giuliani. But the nature of his faith - Romney is Mormon - appears to be a significant problem for many religious voters. A September Pew poll found that just 46 percent of white evangelical Protestants have a favorable opinion of Mormons, while 39 percent have an unfavorable opinion. A Rasmussen Reports poll last year found that more than half of evangelical Christians wouldn't cast their vote for a Mormon.
Romney has made some inroads. This month he secured the endorsements of Bob Jones III and Robert Taylor of South Carolina's Bob Jones University, a conservative Christian college that teaches that Mormonism is a cult. He also won a recent straw poll among socially conservative "Values Voters" in Washington. But Romney, who until relatively recently supported abortion rights, remains a hard sell for many evangelicals.
By Brian Montopoli
©MMVII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.




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See all 316 CommentsRe: "Democrats Keep The Faith"
All hail to Israel!!!
The LAMEstream media is nothing but a bunch of biased, hypocritical shills for democrats. The secret''s out and you WILL FAIL!
It''s also a bit pompous and conceited to declare oneself an instrument of God. Earth to Barak...get over yourself.
Christ was wotthy of conceit but was humble. We mortals, particularly the ones in politics, could stand to be more humble.
Bush said Christian and look what they got - a guy that is rotten to the core........
-- Aristotle - 343 B.C.
It should read "Dems Find Election Year Religion" because that is most always the case. How can you believe and vote consistently one way and try to show up at church for a year and claim to have Faith?
Posted by realpatriot1
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If i was you I would be very concerned about the type of kingdom Obama wants to create because I believe he is a phony Christian and more of a closet Muslim.
THEY HANDICAP RACEHORSES AND WE CAN HANDICAP THE CANDIDATES !
"May God Almighty give our work His blessing, strengthen our purpose, and endow us with wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are fighting not for ourselves but for Germany.%u201D -- Adolf Hitler, 1933 Berlin Speech
Hitler and the Church -
http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
How inconvenient for the Dems that the ACLU resides in their ranks while they try to act religious...
And you believe he''s a closet Muslim why?
Did his threat to attack Al Quaeda in Pakastan have anything to do with your deductive conclusions?
Nobody believes anything liberals say anymore.
Did the christians vote for Bush because of faith in jesus? Of course not, they just want to keep on judging every single person and then not forgive every single person and then say a bunch of *** otherwise.
The evangelical christian vote is not in play, they forgot about jesus about 20 years ago and they are just another political action committee that plays on fear and hate.
Don''t bother Obama, these evangelicals won''t vote for you unless you promise to decapitate more american soldiers for their enjoyment.
Jesus would have joined the ACLU if he were alive today to protect the rights of the most vulnerable, repubbers only quote the bible when they can use it to spread fear.
all these paul posts sure are annoying, I now know whose supporters are as annoying as cheneys....
Don''t try to give me any *** about this either...I don''t go to church!
i dont think it mix.
Posted by gunownerdan at 05:46 PM : Oct 31, 2007
I''d be delighted if a religious type could please explain to me why abortion is wrong. If you believe the fetus has a soul, won''t it either (a) catch the express to heaven; or (b) catch the next train onto earth? Isn''t that better than (c) being born into an unwelcoming, ill-prepared or perhaps even violent home? There''s just no good moral argument that favors taking away a woman''s right to make a decision so vital to her right to self-dertermination and her right to protect the integrity of her own body. When we deny her that right, we know with absolute certainty the person to whom we do violence; when she aborts a fetus, she has quite arguably done it a favor. Surely, the religious are not going to tell us the aborted fetus is condemned to hell and therefore a legitimate victim? The only arguable victim of an abortion is the woman herself and she certainly should be permitted to make that determination. In short, we have no business protecting her from herself as any honest conservative knows.
i dont think it mix.
Posted by libsluvsuvs at 05:55 PM : Oct 31, 2007
Good. There should be a separation of church and state. These religious lunatics want to vote for somebody, then they should vote for the pope. The last time their "candidate of choice" was elected, we ended up in a war for no reason, our national treasury is bankrupted, and our credibility worldwide has been damaged almost to the point of no repair.
Religious people - please vote with your own brains this time!! Not how the church tells you to vote!!
He''s got the (R) attached to his name. If he has such integrity, and he''s so noble, he would drop the party and run as an Independent. As long as he represents the party, he is going to be considered "another GOP anti-American politician".
I like his message, but I won''t vote for him as long as the GOP is working his strings.
He couldn''t manage one city!! How in the he11 do you expect him to run a whole country?!?! The people of NY couldn''t get rid of him fast enough, and as far as 9/11 goes, all he did was stand back and let the fire dept, police dept, and emergency management offices do their jobs. He was nothing more than a spokesman - he didn''t direct any work!! The only bigger joke than Giuliani as president, is the people like you that support him!!
A used car salesman has a zeal to who ever they are selling a lemon to also.
Posted by BaghdadsHere at 05:42 PM : Oct 31, 2007
Yikes!!! That''s scarier than your name! I know it''s Halloween and all, but please don''t terrify us like that! We''ve had enough idiocy in the White House to last the next century while we try to fix the damage.
Firstly, anyone with a brain can tell you Barry had bad advisors that allowed him to jump the gun with his TOO EARLY -in- his- career- candidacy. He was going great guns with his fine performance in the Senate, representing us in Illinois in fine style - - but where does he get off thinking that he has the stuff to go higher after his paltry few years in Washington ?
He needed a good record in office as a HEALER and a candidate that was COLOURLESS - should have sat while President Hillary did her two terms...THEN made his move. Would have worked. Now, I fear, he has TOTALLY jinxed the rest of his career.
Another point - average America is not impressed with Revivalist or Evangelical or Pentecostal ANYTHING or ANYBODY. That stuff is for the slack-jawed Yokels in South Carolina or Virginia. The snake-handlers and the ''left behind'' nabobs. Barry doesn''t win ANY VOTES by courting these losers.
They''re voting Republiscum anyway cuz too many G=A=Ys and pro-choicers are Democratic Party suppporters.
Too bad you didn''t wait, Barry - but the fact is YOU BLEW IT.
Then they can do just like Bush and ignore both issues for 2 full terms. Or in the second term, they could legalize both - who cares? As long as they sucker the fools into voting for them. That''s all these "religious right" freaks are good for anyway - votes.
Are the Democrats really "keeping the faith" if they only talk about it every 4 years during campaigns?
Maybe a better headline would be "Democrats Faking the Faith"...
Once conception occurs there is a creation of human life...it has a future...whether simply to be a "spontaneous abortion" or to live or die in this ''vail of tears and joys.''
In any event, that mass of cells in the womb is human. All creatures great and small arise from a like lump of cells...none of them turn into something other than that which contributed the genetic material to make them what they are. When a fetus is aborted because it is inconvenient, a human life is ended by a human hand...There are moral ramifications to this...just as there are when the life of a child or adult is wantonly taken.
The idea that one would be so cavalier as to take away the future of a living human being is appalling to me, both from a religious and humanistic standpoint. Such waste offends me. What it does for God, will be between those who murder the unborn and Him and I would leave it there as far as politics are concerned...whatever law could do against these people should not be an issue for a believer...what awaits in the hereafter should be enough...karma should be enough. In a sense, the argument over abortion is less an argument for the sake of the life taken, as it is over the fate and character of those who took life.
Posted by singinrick at 07:15 PM : Oct 31, 2007
They all voted for Bush the first time and he did nothing about either issue, and then they voted for him again. So either they''re stupid or they don''t pay attention. Which is it?
Or maybe they like war and a bankrupt country?
Posted by singinrick at 07:18 PM : Oct 31, 2007
The UFO guy?
LOL!!! You really are nuts!!!
Posted by Prinzowhales at 07:22 PM : Oct 31, 2007
Thank you. We therefore have no business making it illegal as that would simply be legislating morality for the purpose of legislating morality. Let''s hope this country has moved past the need to debate why legislating morality is such a dangerous and undesirable thing.
Posted by BaghdadsHere at 05:42 PM : Oct 31, 2007
Yikes!!! That''''s scarier than your name! I know it''''s Halloween and all, but please don''''t terrify us like that! We''''ve had enough idiocy in the White House to last the next century while we try to fix the damage.
Posted by Candide777 at 06:27 PM : Oct 31, 2007
Do i Scare you Candide777? Do you know Baghdad is a safer place to live than NYC,Chicago,LA or Washington?
Responding to two posts:
"Who has done anything about these issues? The President can try to pass pieces of legislation, but if they do not make it through the legislation process of approval, than it serves no purpose."
At some point you''re going to have to realize that g*y people are entitled to the same rights and protections that everyone else is. The thing that irks me about the GOP, is that the same people that keep opposing it, are the same people that keep getting caught doing it. (Hypocrites!!) G*y people aren''t going away - you people on the right need to realize that.
"(and you call us Christians the problem..)"
No - I say organized religion is the problem. Christians, Muslims, jews, etc, etc. Anyone that can''t keep their religious beliefs to themselves and feel they MUST impose their beliefs on everyone else are the problem. To me, the Christians that vote for a president based strictly on his views of abortion and g*y marriage, are as dangerous as the Muslims that want us all dead. When was the last time you saw any Buddhist or Hindi trying to impose their will on someone? How about a native American Indian? How about an Inuit Eskimo? The Muslims your Christians can''t make that claim....
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