Obama courts conservatives with new faith program
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press
July 2, 2008
Page 2 of 3
Still, the Obama camp notes that some evangelicals feel passionately about aggressive environmental stewardship, an issue more commonly associated with Democrats. Others find appeal in Obama's message about ending messy political divisions.
Obama recently won the endorsement of the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, leader of a Methodist megachurch in Houston who is very close to Bush.
McCain is a mostly reliable conservative vote, but he isn't as passionate or vocal about religious conservatives as some would like. He also famously upbraided some Christian evangelical leaders as "agents of intolerance" in his first presidential campaign. He has sought to make amends since then and is continuing his outreach efforts. He met with world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham last weekend.
Obama's high-profile embrace of a key theme of Bush's time in office -- the "faith-based initiative" -- is just the latest example of him trying to show his centrist side.
Last week, he quoted Reagan, saying "we have to trust but verify" after Bush lifted trade sanctions against North Korea and moved to remove the country from the U.S. terrorism list.
Obama also supported new electronic surveillance rules for the government's eavesdropping program, saying "an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue," after opposing a similar bill last year. After the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia's gun ban, he said he favors both an individual's right to bear firearms as well as a government's right to regulate them.
On Iraq, he has gone from hard-edged, vocal opposition to more nuanced rhetoric that calls for a phased-out troop drawdown that could last 16 months. He also disagreed with the Supreme Court decision last week that struck down a Louisiana law allowing capital punishment for people who rape children under 12.
Speaking with reporters, Obama disputed that he is altering views.
"I get tagged as being on the left and, when I simply describe what has been my position consistently, then suddenly people act surprised," he said. "But there hasn't been substantial shifts there."
While Obama would expand Bush's efforts to give religious charities more equal footing when getting federal funding, he also would tweak what he would call the President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in ways that divert from Bush's approach.
He would increase spending on social services, starting with a $500 million-a-year program to keep 1 million poor children up to speed on their studies over the summers. He would increase training for charities applying for funding and make it a grass-roots effort. He would elevate the program to be "a critical part of my administration," a reference to criticism that Bush paid barely more than lip service to his effort.
Obama also chose a different emphasis for why religious charities are an important answer to solving poverty and other social problems: because they better know the people who are hurting, instead of Bush's argument that religion itself is a transforming power the government must not be afraid to harness.
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