SEND TO A FRIEND

|

PRINT ARTICLE

|

Obama Works to Close Faith Gap

While the Republican brand suffers and independent voters focus on issues that favor Democrats, John McCain should be able to rely on one key voting bloc that overwhelmingly favors his party: evangelicals. But Barack Obama is doing more than any Democrat in recent memory to win over religious voters and, facing an opponent in McCain who has been historically shy about his own faith, Obama could close the "faith gap" better than any Democrat come November.

On paper Obama's effort would seem to be nearly impossible, given his traditional liberal positions on social issues, particularly abortion. But with the launch of the Joshua Generation Project, Obama aims to change the very framework of the discussion with the faith community.

Evangelical voters, Obama will argue, have more in common with Democrats on other issues like poverty, the crisis in Darfur, the war in Iraq, and climate change. And the Illinois Democrat is putting in the time to woo them; he will talk about faith tomorrow during a visit to a community ministry in Zanesville, Ohio. Many who watch the evangelical community believe Obama's efforts to frame the debate could work, particularly with younger faith voters who are exhibiting signs of broadening an earlier generation's reliance on single-issue voting patterns.

Social issues still play a major role in their voting consideration, said David Fleer, a professor of religion at Lipscomb University, which hosted a conference on religion in politics this weekend. "There's been not an abandonment of that conservative position on abortion, but more recognition that it might be their parents' perspective," Fleer said. "I think young evangelicals are just considering other matters."

That generational shift is potentially good news for Democrats. Obama's "ability to tap into younger evangelicals, especially, I think is a sign that this is a generational issue. Younger people are more open in their expression," Fleer said. In fact, he says, the very notion that Democrats spent time in the primary talking about their faiths opened the door. "There's a wide variety of opportunities now for faith to be in the dialog with politics," he said. "What's been so surprising to me was the ease with which Obama and [Hillary] Clinton talked about their personal faith."

"The truth about young evangelicals is that they track with their larger age demographic anyway," said Shaun Casey, a visiting fellow at the Center for American Progress and a religious outreach adviser to the Obama campaign. Younger voters are trending more Democratic across the board, he said, "and that's where the seismic change is." And Obama's strategy of focusing on other issues might work. It's "not to say those folks are getting more liberal on abortion or same-sex issues. It just means they're less inclined to be single-issue voters," Casey said. "The moral basket of issues is larger than just abortion and gay marriage."

The generational gap becomes more clear as the two candidates reach out to very different evangelical leaders. McCain met this weekend with the Revs. Billy and Franklin Graham at their North Carolina retreat, and McCain has assiduously courted older, more established evangelicals. Obama is going after the younger set, many of whom are only now becoming politically active. That gives Democrats a chance to appeal to voters who have yet to become set in their party affiliations, and it's concerning some Republicans. James Dobson, a prominent Colorado-based evangelical, lashed out at Obama last week for his "fruitcake" interpretation of the Bible. Still, Dobson has yet to endorse McCain.

This year, like other demographic groups, evangelicals are paying attention. "In a lot of religious communities, there are a lot of discussions going on about politics and public policy," Casey said. And while McCain is likely to win big percentages of the evangelical and other religious vote, he might not score a win as big as President Bush. In 2004, Bush beat John Kerry among evangelical voters by a 78%-22% margin and narrowly among Catholic voters, as well. Evangelical voters are 26% of the American electorate, while Catholics make up 22%. Casey thinks Obama can cut that margin. "Whoever moves that evangelical line a couple of inches ... will be the next president of the United States," he said.

But there is a danger that Obama could go too far in his lofty, pulpit-style rhetoric. In fact, some think the name of Obama's outreach to younger evangelicals is the beginning. The Joshua Generation refers to Moses' disciple Joshua, who led the Israelites in conquest of Canaan after their escape from Egypt. Associating oneself with the deliverance of the Promised Land could not only offend evangelicals, but could also put off some on the left who disapprove of such a commingling of religion and politics.

"It is a little over the top," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "But that tends to happen when there's any confusion between religion and politics and the merger of the two." Lynn sees both candidates appealing to religious voters in more overt tones than in previous years, pointing not only to Obama's advance on younger evangelicals but also to McCain's reliance on stories about his prisoner of war past, including one on Christmas in which a Vietnamese soldier draws a cross in the sand, signifying that he, too, was a Christian. McCain tells the story on the stump frequently, most notably to religious audiences.

But the notion of a Joshua Generation is language that has been prevalent, especially in African American evangelical communities, for generations. It's not the association with the promised land, says Fleer; it's part of a larger narrative involving virtually every Civil Rights leader in recent years. "The African American community, whether they're in church or out of church, they know that kind of language, of the exodus and of slavery," he said. Martin Luther King, Fleer notes, used the Exodus narrative often, whether in church or speaking to striking sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968.

Still, faith has unquestionably played more of a role this year than it has in previous presidential contests, according to both those involved in religious outreach and those opposed to religion in politics. "What's happened this year, and the press is more than a little complicit in this, is that [the media has] chosen to get more specific," Lynn said. He cited questions during debates about candidates' favorite Bible verses and a moment during a CNN forum inquiring into favorite Biblical stories.

While McCain has seemed almost shy about his religious convictions -- enough so that social conservatives continue to urge him to engage their base to encourage a high turnout in November -- Obama has no such predilections. While his efforts, they may ultimately prove beneficial. If Obama can convince evangelical voters even to consider voting for a Democratic candidate, that may be all he needs to win the White House, with the assistance of a key part of John McCain's Republican base.

---

Facebook

|

Email

|

Print

|

---

Related Topics: election 2008 | obama | religion |

Sponsored Links