Dan Gilgoff: June 2008 Archives

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, on John McCain's short list of potential running mates, might have upped his chances of getting the nod by doing what McCain won't: going on the Christian Broadcasting Network and talking about his faith in Jesus. Here's one exchange from Pawlenty's interview with David Brody:

Brody: "Talk to me a little bit about your faith walk a little bit. I know your faith is very important to you and I don't think people get a chance to hear that as often as they might like especially an Evangelical audience if you will."

Governor Tim Pawlenty: "As a person, I am defined by my commitment to Christ and people always say well there is an official role and there is but I don't think people in public life should shy away from sharing their faith perspective because it informs others about their value system and what they believe and who they are and so I am a committed Christian and I am someone who is proud to say that my value system, my beliefs are shaped my faith and my faith in Christ and I think that is informative for people to know and I'm not bashful about that."

Pawlenty also discusses McCain's plans to speak more to evangelical concerns as the race progresses.

Earlier today, God-o-Meter referenced a pair of posts from blogger George Archibald alleging that this weekend's meeting between John McCain and Billy and Franklin Graham came after McCain had rebuffed an earlier offer to meet with Billy Graham from an intermediary. Archibald cast this weekend's meeting as McCain's attempt at damage control. But McCain campaign spokesman Joseph Pounder tells God-o-Meter that that report's bunk:

Those reports are false. Our campaign had already been working directly with Franklin Graham's office to set up a meeting and declined Mr. Jacobs' offer to help facilitate a meeting. John McCain has the highest respect for Reverend Billy Graham and was happy to have the opportunity to meet with him.

John McCain sojourned to Billy Graham's mountaintop cabin in North Carolina yesterday for a 45-minute meeting with the Reverend and his son, Rev. Franklin Graham. Although the Grahams declined to issue endorsements for McCain, the New York Times reports that Franklin had warm words for the Senator:

[B]oth sides portrayed [the meeting] as nonpolitical -- just a chance to talk over old times and pray for God's blessing on the presidential election and the candidates. But afterward, there were encomiums all around.

Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, had requested the meeting with the Grahams. He called his hosts "great leaders" and said they had had "an excellent conversation." In response to a reporter's question, he said, as if slightly surprised: "Oh, I didn't ask for their vote."

Billy Graham, 89, who has counseled American presidents for the last half-century and is an enormously influential voice among millions of evangelical and born-again Christians, has been in poor health and made no statement.

But Franklin Graham, who met last week with Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the likely Democratic nominee, issued a statement praising Mr. McCain. "I was impressed by his personal faith and his moral clarity on important social issues facing America today," said Mr. Graham, who noted that he and Mr. McCain, of Arizona, have sons serving in the military.

Is this a new chapter in McCain's as of yet lackluster evangelical outreach effort? Blogger George Archibald, a former Washington Times reporter, suggests otherwise, characterizing the meeting as an attempt by McCain to make nice with Billy Graham after his campaign declined the Reverend's request for a meeting last month:

It was a huge mistake of McCain for President campaign functionaries to have spurned the Reverend Brian Jacobs' offer last month to set up the meeting between McCain and the renowned evangelical preacher, as I initially reported on this site.

When the news of the rebuff hit, it was a thunderbolt throughout the McCain campaign. John McCain himself hit the ceiling, wanted to know who had made such a stupid mistake - saying no, I don't have time for a meeting with Billy Graham? What idiot made that stupid, senseless mistake?

God-o-Meter is unfamiliar with Archibald's work but will check with the McCain camp and other sources about this report and let you know what shakes out.

God-o-Meter is going to have to start keeping a tally of conservative Christians coming to Barack Obama's defense. The latest is former George W. Bush aide Peter Wehner (pictured), who--despite having problems with Obama's social liberalism--comes out swinging against James Dobson's attack on Obama's vision for faith in the public square:

...Obama was doing what people like Dobson have long urged: making the public square more hospitable for people of faith and calling for a halt to their demonization. Obama made his case in ways I found to be respectful and authentic....

But critics of Obama have an obligation to provide a fair and honest critique, and the attacks leveled by Dobson fall terribly short of that standard.

If Christian conservatives want to be taken seriously, they need to make serious arguments and speak with intellectual integrity. In this instance, Dobson didn't. He has set back his cause and made some of us who are evangelicals and conservatives wince.

It's yet to be seen whether Obama can appeal to rank and file evangelicals. But he's doing a bang-up job so far appealing to evangelical elites--unlike, say, John McCain.

It's been a month and a half. The Brody File reports that John McCain has finally responded in a big way to the California Supreme Court's May 15 decision to legalize gay marriage, sending a statement of solidarity to the California group pushing for a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage:

"I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions."

Brody is impressed:

Not only is he now on record FOR the constitutional marriage amendment in California, he also put HIS name on it.... This is a good move by McCain. It's not a pander at all.

But because he was so slow on the uptake, McCain's late-breaking support for the California amendment risks looking like a pander. What matters now, at least so far as the Christian Right is concerned, is how strenuously McCain helps promote the California ballot initiative. He's piled up heaps of doubt among conservative evangelical activists.

Calvin College is out with the results of a new public opinion survey titled "The Religious Landscape and Projected Presidential Vote: Spring 2004 and Spring 2008. Check it out here. God-o-Meter hasn't sifted through the whole report yet, but some...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds to word that Barack Obama's Catholic Advisory Council hasn't disbanded in the face of criticism from his group by posting a comment to God-o-Meter: Nice to know they still chat. But if they are...

Responding to a press release this morning by the conservative Catholic League speculating that the Obama campaign had disbanded its Catholic advisory board, an Obama aide tells God-o-Meter: "The Obama Catholic Advisory Council is thriving, and actively reaching out to...

It's been a while since the Catholic League For Civil and Religious Rights last attacked the Obama campaign, but today it's claiming victory in a battle that began more than a month ago, when the Catholic League's Bill Donohue (pictured)...

Newsweek's got the scoop on the Obama campaign's many prayer-based conference calls, with separate calls for evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Jews, and African Americans happening each week. The calls have included Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a spiritual advisor to President George W....

Veepstakes wise, John McCain's biggest decision may be whether to pick a social moderate who would appeal to swing voters but alienate the Christian Right--a Charlie Crist or Tom Ridge--or someone who would clearly excite the Christian Right, a Mike...

Gallup has released an "Early Road Map to the McCain-Obama Matchup" suggesting that, despite John McCain's anemic religious outreach, and despite Barack Obama's unprecedented efforts to win over the faithful (at last count, the Obama camp employed three fulltime faith...

With clients like Focus on the Family, Franklin Graham, and Campus Crusade for Christ, Mark DeMoss may be the most prominent public relations executive in the evangelical world. A former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell, DeMoss became then-presidential candidate...

Writing in The Wall Street Journal today, Karl Rove says the 2008 race will likely be won by the candidate who has the superior ground game. Presidential candidates' national organizations typically grow to comprise tens of thousands of supporters, mostly...

Barack Obama may have gotten a cooler reception yesterday at AIPAC than John McCain did a couple days earlier, but Obama did manage to outdo the Bush administration in seeing things the Israeli way (no small task) in one crucial...

Another day, another conservative attack against Barack Obama over his religious influences, specifically Rev. Michael Pfleger, whose sermon a week and a half ago seemed to catalyze Obama's resignation from his church. This time it's The Wall Street Journal. Notice...

The Archdiocese of Chicago has put Rev. Michael Pfleger on leave after his sermon about Hillary Clinton's supposed white entitlement complex at Barack Obama's old church a week and a half ago. Pfleger's punishment is the latest in a rash...

When Barack Obama announced he was resigning from Trinity United Church of Christ this weekend, God-o-Meter was surprised to learn that the decision was born as much out of sympathy to the church as out of anger with recent remarks...

In its wrap of Senator John McCain's speech yesterday before AIPAC, The Wall Street Journal makes an obvious but important point: The Republican presidential candidate's speech Monday before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee drew a standing ovation and illustrates...