Religion in the US presidential race

During US presidential campaigns it is usually the Republican party and its candidates that make references to religion. This time round the Democrats have also jumped on God's bandwagon, so to speak, to close what commentators describe as the 'God gap'.

Many are noting with surprise that most of the 'God talk' in this presidential election season has been among and about Democratic candidates and that the dialogue takes a broad view of what's important to religiously motivated voters. At the same time, election issues such as poverty, world debt and global warming are being considered from the perspective of faith together with such subjects as abortion or narrowly defined 'family values'.

Fr Jim Wallis's book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a post-Religious Right America argues that the era of the 'religious right' dominating US politics is over and that people of faith of all political leanings are obliged to push for social justice in society. A similar position is being taken by the syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne Jr, author of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right, and Amy Sullivan, national editor at Time magazine and author of The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap.

Observers of the campaign are noticing that the two remaining Democratic candidates for president understand the theses of such books, as evidenced by their campaigns' outreach efforts to religious groups. During the campaign both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have openly talked about the influence of faith in their public and private lives.

Sullivan's book tells about the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, the first Catholic nominee since 1960, and how it failed to muster support among religious groups. One chapter is headlined 'We don't do white churches' - a quote from a senior Kerry campaign staffer answering a question about outreach to churches in Ohio other than black Protestant congregations. This time around, Clinton and Obama seem to understand that, as Sullivan noted, such an attitude 'leaves out three-quarters of the electorate'.

In the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary, Obama and Clinton participated in a nationally telecast discussion about the role of faith in politics entitled the Compassion Forum, sponsored by religious leaders from across the spectrum of faiths and political views. Both candidates tackled questions about their personal religious influences and how faith affects their public policy decisions.

The Republicans are also actively nurturing the religious vote. Sen. John McCain of Arizona has made several campaign appearances at Catholic institutions. But he's been under fire for weeks for accepting an endorsement by Fr John Hagee, a televangelist who has characterised the Catholic Church as 'the great whore', an 'apostate church', the 'Anti-Christ' and a 'false cult system'. On April 24 McCain repudiated Fr Hagee's remarks, saying he does not accept the views of everyone who endorses him.

A February article in Christianity Today on McCain's relationship with evangelicals notes that in the 2000 election he described Fr Pat Robertson and the late Fr Jerry Falwell as 'agents of intolerance' and with some evangelicals, that history haunts him.

It seems that religion is becoming the in-thing for all parties.