Obama Web Site Seeks to Rally The Faithful
By Politics
Saturday, June 2, 2007; A05
Although Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is a Christian, he "embodies the basic ideals and values of most Hindus," said Prianka S., a Hindu from Chicago.
Obama's "love for Israel" is "evident not just in his work, but also in his heart," said Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), an Orthodox Jew.
Obama "represents true faith," said the Rev. Bertha Perkins, a Baptist minister in New Hampshire.
Those are among the gushing testimonials to Obama on his "People of Faith for Barack" Web site (
http://faith.barackobama.com), which officially launches today.
Obama is the first of the Democratic presidential contenders to launch a religious outreach Web site, but the others won't be far behind. Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) is set to unveil his "moral leadership" Web site tomorrow, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) campaign is working on one, staffers said.
Edwards stumbled in February when two religious bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, resigned from his campaign over past writings that blasted religious conservatives as "Christofascists." Much of his religious outreach has since been handled directly by his campaign manager, former Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), who spent a year in a Roman Catholic seminary before going into politics.
Obama's effort is headed by Joshua DuBois, a former Senate aide who is associate pastor of a Pentecostal church in Cambridge, Mass. DuBois calls himself a "political progressive, religious evangelical" -- exactly the demographic that all three Democratic candidates will be courting Monday night at a forum sponsored by Jim Wallis's magazine, Sojourners, and carried live by CNN.
-- Alan Cooperman
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/01/AR2007060102283_pf.html
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