God-O-Meter

God-O-Meter

Obama Copies Bush ’04 Tactics

posted by dgilgoff | 8:52pm Tuesday October 16, 2007

God-o-Meter can tell that Barack Obama is going to make it very difficult to keep its needle below ten. The Associated Press today sheds significant new light on Obama’s well-documented string of “faith forums” in early presidential primary and caucus states, including that his campaign is advertising the events in church bulletins and signing up “congregation contacts” to build support.
God-o-Meter remembers way back in 2004 when the Bush-Cheney campaign was lambasted even by some Christian Right leaders for using similar church organizing tactics. The AP reports that Obama is already drawing criticism from some quarters:

Obama has drawn criticism from the Rev. Welton Gaddy of the liberal Interfaith Alliance, who said the senator “has sounded precisely like George W. Bush” in recent church appearances.

And, like God-o-Meter has been saying for some time now:

“I don’t think a Democratic presidential candidate has come close to doing anything like this before,” said Mark Silk, director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. “If you are going to parse the different dimensions of how a presidential candidate does religion, he’s doing them all.”


9



Previous Posts

Closed for the Season
With Election Day finally having come and gone, God-o-Meter is closing up shop till 2012--or at least 2010. Till then, get your faith and politics fix over at Beliefnet editor-in-chief Steve Waldman's blog. 7

posted 4:32:33pm Nov. 19, 2008 | read full post »

On The Religious Left, Great Expectations
The first priorities for Barack Obama's administration will be the economy and a variety of foreign policy issues. But the burgeoning religious left, which worked so hard to get Obama elected, expects some movement on its issues, including a robust White House office of faith-based initiatives, pove

posted 1:49:31pm Nov. 07, 2008 | read full post »

Howard Dean's Vindication
God-o-Meter wrote a piece for today's Roll Call on the vindication of Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean's much-derided 50-State Strategy, which is largely about reaching out to the nation's more religious voters in the red states: Years before Barack Obama showed that a liberal Demo

posted 2:01:06pm Nov. 06, 2008 | read full post »

A Post-Election Chat with Ralph Reed
Amid today's talk that Barack Obama has narrowed the God Gap, God-o-Meter checked in with Ralph Reed, who spearheaded religious outreach for George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns and who pioneered such outreach for Republicans as executive director of the Christian Coalition. What surprised you i

posted 3:09:07pm Nov. 05, 2008 | read full post »

More Innacurate Faith Storylines From the Media
God-o-Meter is struck by the number of faith-based storylines the news media appear to have gotten dead wrong this year. One was the line that Obama was poised to make big gains among white votes, especially evangelicals, who were undergoing a generational shift in their political thinking and reexa

posted 11:53:20am Nov. 05, 2008 | read full post »

Advertisement
Comments read comments(2)
post a comment
Brian E Shepherd

posted October 16, 2007 at 10:29 pm


Fred 2tuf4u Thompson, IS Protestant! I CANNOT FIX This POORLY DESIGNED Internet! I know how 2 program, but I CANNOT FIX EVERYTHING, Microsoft WILL, Based upon MY Work Requests!!!!!!!!!!!!



report abuse
 

Nancy

posted November 5, 2007 at 1:51 pm


What type of religion does he follow. Is it Muslim which many have accused him of being?



report abuse
 

Post a Comment

By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.

Share this story


About Beliefnet

Our mission is to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness. More about Beliefnet.

Help

Media Kit

Subscribe

Legal

Copyright © Beliefnet, Inc. and/or its licensors. All rights reserved. Use of this site is subject to Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy. Constructed by Beliefnet.

Advertisement

Report as Inappropriate

You are reporting this content because it violates the Terms of Service.

All reported content is logged for investigation.