The Brody File reports that John McCain is readying a so-called “Committee of 50″ religious and conservative leaders as a key component of its evangelical outreach strategy. To which God-o-Meter responds: How’s this different than the (lackluster) religious outreach strategy McCain has pursued thus far? In February, the McCain camp released a list of dozens of Virginia-based supporters, which included plenty of “pro-family” leaders. A few months earlier, the campaign released a list of Catholic supporters nationwide. So what’s new here? Is this the McCain camp’s way of convincing Brody’s evangelical readership that it takes them seriously when it’s actually doing little to woo them?
Here’s the sketchy details from Brody:

The Brody File has been accumulating information about how John McCain is planning to reach out to Evangelicals.
An informed source tells me there’s a plan developing to come up with something called a “Committee of 50.”
Basically this will be a key list of 50 religious and opinion leaders that the McCain camp will target when it comes to their outreach. It will be made up of “new guard” and “old guard” figures.
The list is still in development, but the bottom line here is that the McCain camp has no desire to start a dialogue with folks who want to beat up the senator over some of his views. They’re looking for people who are open to listening to him, convinced that they will like what they hear.
Don’t expect the McCain team to set their sights just on national leaders. The team that is currently being assembled will really be active on the local level, going pastor to pastor, church to church.

Brody, for his part, comes acros as none too impressed. Compare that to the what he said about the Democratic candidates yesterday:

Democrats Engage in Faith Talk, Make Inroads
The Brody File will be attending The Compassion Forum this Sunday in Pennsylvania. It’ll be a great chance for the Democratic candidates (and really, the Democratic Party) to continue hammering home the point that Republicans do not have a corner on the faith talk in this country. Their efforts have been impressive and are working.
You have to hand it to the Democrats. Anytime there’s a chance to talk about faith as it relates to the social justice issues (poverty, Darfur, AIDS, human rights) they are ready to go and willing to talk about how the Bible speaks to those issues. Good for them.

These are not the views of some lefty evangelical. This is a correspondent for the network Pat Robertson founded. If you ask God-o-Meter, McCain’s in trouble.

4