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Politics

Candidates more vocal about their faith

The presidential hopefuls from both parties see the topic as crucial to victory.

By SHERRI DAY, Times Staff Writer
Published January 18, 2008

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, right, bows his head in prayer with University president Jimmy Epting during a campaign event at North Greenville Univ. in Tigerville, S.C.
	[AP photo]

ADVERTISEMENT [Getty Images] Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton attends the Citizens of Zion Missionary Baptist Church and meets with black religious community leaders in Compton, California. Like their Republican counterparts, Democrats have hired religious strategists to help garner access to churches, faith-based groups and their leaders. [Getty Images] Supporters pray during a campaign rally for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney in Bluffton, S.C. Despite earning the support of some prominent evangelicals and having a sterling reputation for religious and family devotion, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, has faltered

Were it not for evangelicals in Iowa, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee probably would already have a spot in the graveyard of presidential hopefuls.

Instead, the ordained Baptist ministerheads into primaries in the South where he will have another chance to rally his base. Next up, South Carolina, a state blanketed with Baptist churches and Bible believers who traditionally show up in great numbers at the polls.

"What we had here was a candidate who was relatively unknown and that most people didn't give much of a chance being a factor, let alone winning," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington, D.C. "But that's the perfect example of why candidates care about religion."

While religion long has played an important role in American presidential politics, candidates in both parties are talking more frequently about it these days, probably because so much is still up for grabs.

So-called "values voters," evangelical Christians who formed a significant part of the coalition that helped deliver the White House to President Bush in 2004, seem to be uncommitted. They have yet to coalesce around a single candidate, and many evangelicals who supported Bush in the past have been disappointed with the progress of their social issues agenda.

As a result, even Democrats have been making inroads among some of these voters, which was apparent in several congressional races that helped Democrats take control of Congress in 2006.

About 70 percent of Americans say they believe in God and want to elect a president who shares those beliefs, according to an August 2007 Pew Forum Poll. This alone makes personal faith an unavoidable topic on the campaign trail, observers say.

"In both political parties, to be a viable candidate, one has to be able to talk about faith publicly," said Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University in Arlington, Va., and co-author of The Values Vote: The Christian Right and the 2004 Elections. "There's just an overall comfort factor associated with somebody who attends religious services and believes in God."

The race for the White House is muddled. At the moment, four Republicans and two Democrats have won at least one primary in the early states and no one can claim to be a frontrunner.

Both Democrats, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, speak frequently about their faith histories, and two of the Republicans do as well.

Only Republicans Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have deliberately kept their personal faith from being central to their campaigns.

"Most every debate has incorporated social and moral issues," said John Stemberger, who heads the Florida Family Policy Council in Orlando. "They kind of have to, especially in the Republican primary (where) at least upward of 40 percent of the Republican primary base are people of faith."

Perhaps candidates with the most to lose among evangelical voters are those whose belief systems fall outside the mainstream. Despite leading in polls for months, building solid campaign operations in critical states, earning the support of some prominent evangelicals and having a sterling reputation for religious and family devotion, Mitt Romney has faltered.

To be sure, part of his problem is that he has had rather significant changes of heart on big issues, switching to oppose abortion rights and being for, but then against stem cell research and gay marriage. But part of it, too, may be that Romney is Mormon.

"Sadly, I think that is a factor in (Romney's) case," Rozell said. "The segment of the population most uncomfortable with Mormonism is evangelical Christians."

Like their Republican counterparts, Democrats have hired religious strategists to help garner access to churches, faith-based groups and their leaders. Clinton of New York and Obama of Illinois both have made overtures to large churches, particularly evangelical congregations.

Both routinely pop up in pulpits around the country, most notably in separate visits to Saddleback Church in California, an evangelical megachurch led by Purpose Driven Life author, the Rev. Rick Warren.

Obama's camp also organized a series of gospel concerts in South Carolina, designed to attract black Protestants, who appear to support Clinton in greater numbers.

Resistance to religious pandering is beginning to crop up among secularists and church-and-state separatists who are calling for voters to put the faith talk in perspective.

Just after the Iowa caucus, the Interfaith Alliance and Americans United for Separation of Church and State began running television spots asking candidates to honor the Constitution by protecting the diversity of all Americans whether they are religious or not.

The Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, a Louisiana Baptist minister who leads the alliance, said the goal of the ad campaign is to urge voters not to choose a candidate solely because of his or her religion.

"We believe that religion makes its best contribution to the nation when it acts like religion, not when it is used as a political strategy," Gaddy said.

Theirs is a small voice of dissent amid a continuing wave of religiosity that is unlikely to calm unless social conservatives put less emphasis on the issues that traditionally top their agenda.

Should that happen, candidates like Huckabee, who have relied heavily upon allegiance from the faithful, may find themselves rudderless.

"I've always made the argument that the public generally is not uncomfortable with a candidate who is supported by the Religious Right, but the public is uncomfortable with someone who is from the Religious Right," Rozell said.

Sherri Day can be reached at sday@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3405.

Candidates' faiths

The religious affiliations of the presidential candidates:

Republicans

- Rudy Giuliani, Roman Catholic

- John McCain, Episcopalian

- Mitt Romney, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)

- Ron Paul, Baptist

- Mike Huckabee, Southern Baptist

- Fred Thompson, Church of Christ

Democrats

- Hillary Clinton, Methodist

- John Edwards, Methodist

- Barack Obama, United Church of Christ

- Mike Gravel, Unitarian

- Dennis Kucinich, Roman Catholic

[Last modified January 17, 2008, 23:35:03]