Yesterday Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Baptist megachurch in conservative Orange County, California, and author of bestseller "The Purpose Driven Life" hosted candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in successive question and answer sessions. 2,000 of the church's 22,000 members were present in the audience as Warren sought the candidates' views of religious, moral, ethical, and related political topics.
The format was welcoming, neither candidate made a major slip and the audience was good to both participants. As interesting as the exercise was as a debate dry-run, I do not feel it will substantively affect the race. Both contenders accomplished the things they needed to for the audiences they wanted to reach.
Obama wanted to reassure religious moderates that he is not a radical, that he can be trusted. He wanted to reassure Christians that he is a Christian. And he wanted to reassure liberals that he shares their principles. I feel he succeeded on all three counts. Obama made no bones about his own Christian beliefs. He made it clear that his political views come from the standard liberal Christian sources, such as the Sermon on the Mount and such passages as he quoted from Matthew, "Whatsoever you do to the least of these my brothers, you do unto me."
Obama gets credit as a Democrat for even appearing before such a group. White evangelical Protestants support McCain 64-28 according to polls. The audience seemed to give him some credit for that too, applauding several times. It has been quite a while, perhaps since Jimmy Carter in 1976, that the Democrats had a nominee who felt altogether comfortable talking about religion. Where he voiced positions that disagreed with the majority of the denomination's views, as on abortion, he tried to find common ground in reducing the practice.
Obama's positions were often "nuanced." He examined issues from multiple perspectives that did not always come to sharp yes or no conclusions. He often showed evidence of his thinking them through in front of us rather than offering quick, unreflective or pat answers. These are the kinds of responses that appeal to liberals, who see complexities and ambiguities and mistrust "knee-jerk" reactions. They are also the kind that vex conservatives, who crave certainty and decisiveness. Obama's goal was to score points with people of faith among independents and in the Democratic coalition, and avoid throwing red meat to conservative religious fundamentalists in such a way as to incite them and raise their turnout. He largely accomplished these aims.
McCain's objective was to remove any lingering estrangement between himself and the religious right. He wanted to get them fully on board his train, and he largely succeeded too. His views were in line with theirs on the issues, including abortion, stem cells and the federal courts. What is more, they were expressed in the type of short, decisive answers that religious conservatives like to hear, because they indicate the respondent fully accepts the orthodoxy without having to think about it. Especially after the kind of president we now have, that approach scares liberals, but that was not the portion of the public McCain was trying to please. There is no doubt that though the audience was respectful and supportive of Obama, their hearts were with McCain.
But did this session mobilize conservative Protestants to flock to the polls in support of John McCain in November? I doubt it. Though I am sure more are comfortable with him, there is as yet little evidence of the kind of fervor that George W. Bush was able to whip up in 2004. I have no doubt we shall soon see what other avenues the McCain campaign has in mind to improve that over the next 10 weeks.
As a final observation, it was a relief to see such a civil interchange during both sessions. Perhaps if the candidates always behaved as though they were in church this campaign would assume a much more elevated, constructive and intellectually honest tone than it has sometimes assumed up to now.
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