God-o-Meter may have joshed Barack Obama for laying his faith-friendly message on so thick–his campaign is now on a “40 Days of Faith and Family” tour of South Carolina–but make no mistake: Obama is courting religious voters more strenuously than any Democratic White House hopeful in recent memory (with only Hillary Clinton touching him in this cylce). That includes doing what many Democrats in Washington are still afraid of: pursuing the white evangelicals who comprise the GOP’s base. Yesterday, Obama gave what sounded to God-o-Meter like a testimonial about his born-again experience before a crowd of nearly 5,000 at the evangelical Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville, South Carolina (audio here).
Speaking for 15 minutes, Obama characterized his post-college community organizing work in Chicago as “casting about… to see how I could participate in building God’s kingdom” and told how, after his organizing introduced him to various Christian ministries, “I accepted Jesus Christ in my life.” This comes after a week in which his campaign hosted “What’s Faith Got to Do With It?” forums in a half-dozen South Carolina counties. If Obama manages to deprive Clinton of the nomination, could it be that that a Democrat would owe his primary victory largely to–gasp!–religious voters? God-o-Meter thinks so, and can’t believe this could be true so soon after the 2004 Democratic contenders all but ignored the faith vote.
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posted October 8, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Personally I think it is sad that a candidate has to hit the churches and express his faith in order to try and get votes. Religion should have nothing to do with the qualifications for political office. Unfortunately it seems that the separation of church and state gets crossed when soliciting votes.
I like Obama, but am not sure he is ready for the office of President.
His overt expressions of faith,however, are scary, given what we have as an example of “born again” in the White House now and the mess “W” has gotten us into. Obama needs some more experience, and perhaps in another 4 years he will be ready for the presidency.
posted October 9, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Pagansister: When you it’s sad that a candidate has to “express his faith” to get votes, would you rather a candidate conceal his faith and the influence it has on his politics? Would you rather not have found out about W’s faith until he was already in the White House?
posted October 10, 2007 at 8:10 am
It is not expressing his faith that bothers me but using his faith for a political move to get votes. Hillary will talk about her religious beliefs and she is a vile person. If you listen to Rudy’s beliefs on abortion you get the understanding that he does not codone it but does not want to deprive someone who does not have the faith of others from getting an abortion. Do you want it to go back to desperate women with coat hangers dying from bleeding to death and infection. I am of catholic faith and I do not want that to ever occur again. We must understand not everyone has the same faith and many get desperate. Obama goes with the polls just like Hillary. He knows the religious sector is shaky right now with a candidate so here he is now acting like a born again Christian. SHAME on him.
posted October 10, 2007 at 11:28 am
Fqaith has EVERYTHING to do with the values of a person, bit not necessarily a persons character. Too bad about that, but that’s the way we humans are. We say one thing & do another.
posted October 31, 2007 at 1:02 am
Is it not true that Obama, curing the first 12 years of his life, was schooled for five or six years in the Muslim religion, in Indonesia? Someone had said that early-on in the press, but I don’t remember the facts. I’m too old, I guess.
posted November 8, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Well, even if he was Muslim for 12 years of his life, does that mean he’s always Muslim? For crying out loud, this guy’s like “I came to Jesus.” A majority of the U.S. is Christian (as its major religion). It’s that he probably figured out what he believed.
posted November 14, 2007 at 3:07 am
Charles Burges: I went to Catholic schools for 12 years, but I am now neither Catholic nor Christian – I am a Pagan. In fact, I spiritually separated from the RC church before I was out of grade school – I was just too scares sans feces to do stop going through the motions until I was an independent adult. Obama was educated in a school in Indonesia for a time – a SECULAR Indonesian school, not a madrassah. His Muslim background is a right-wing distortion.
God-o-Meter: Do you really think that W has been honest about his faith? It’s just a political pose, probably engineered by Karl Rove or a similar political handler. His platitudes come from his speechwriters, not from his heart – if, indeed he even has one.