Democrats woo evangelicals: "disaffected with Republican leadership and increasingly up for grabs" [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN: June 11, 2008
Analysis: Democrats woo disaffected evangelicals
By Rebecca Sinderbrand

....On Tuesday night, a few blocks from the White House, the Matthew 25 PAC held its inaugural fundraising event, a $1,000-a-head reception featuring Democratic luminaries such as Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Mike McCurry, a White House spokesman under President Clinton. Matthew 25 has long been a touchstone chapter for moderate and liberal Christians, who say the passage -- "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink" -- signals their focus on social justice concerns over hot-button cultural issues.

The group's stated mission: to attract financial support from moderate evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants and Hispanic Catholics committed to electing Sen. Barack Obama president. It will launch ad campaigns in Christian media, send surrogates onto network and cable news, and push back on e-mail rumors that suggest that Obama is not a Christian, organizers said. Matthew 25 will focus its efforts on traditional presidential battlegrounds and a new category of swing states: traditional red states, some trending purple, with significant Christian populations likely to be receptive to Obama's candidacy....

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The success of the Matthew 25 PAC would mark a sea change in the electoral landscape, unprecedented but not a bolt from the blue. Polls have showed that evangelicals, following national trends, are disaffected with Republican leadership and increasingly up for grabs.
The organizer of the Matthew 25 effort, Mara Vanderslice, led the religious outreach for the Democratic presidential ticket in 2004 and -- perhaps more troubling to the GOP -- has done similar, and successful, work for winning Democrats in reliably red states and battlegrounds, such as Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Vanderslice hopes the group will become a political mainstay, backing candidates at every level of government. This year, it has just one mission: supporting Obama's presidential bid.

This new energy has not been matched among conservatives. Same-sex marriage has galvanized some issues-motivated activists, but the Republican standard-bearer has yet to galvanize longtime evangelical foot soldiers this campaign season....

In a mirror image of the Generation Joshua effort that backed Bush four years ago, the Obama campaign is planning the Joshua Generation Project. The program, named after a biblical reference Obama used on the campaign trail, will include blogs, concerts and house parties. The name is drawn from the biblical account of how Joshua's generation, which followed the one that fled Egypt with Moses, led the Israelites into the Promised Land. The goal? To capitalize on an undercurrent of excitement over Obama's candidacy that has begun to become apparent among young evangelicals, including those attending Christian colleges and universities....

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/11/dems.evangelicals/index.html