Liberal Evangelicals Host Presidential Forum
June 4, 2007
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June 1, 2007
Though next week's political calendar is dominated by the New Hampshire presidential debates—the full Democratic field faces off on Sunday night and Republicans rumble on Tuesday—a less hyped presidential candidates forum could make for more interesting viewing.
The liberal Christian group Sojourners is hosting a forum in Washington, D.C., on Monday night for the Democrats' three front-runners, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. It will be the first candidates' event of the '08 presidential season—and in recent memory—to focus entirely on the issue of poverty and how the candidates' personal faith influences their politics.
"There haven't been any candidate forums yet to focus on the compassion issues, to highlight the moral compass of the candidates," says Jack Panell, a spokesperson for Sojourners, which is led by the liberal evangelical Christian and antipoverty advocate Jim Wallis. "We intend to ask these people how they will rely on their faith and other moral values to govern if they're elected president."
The participation of the three leading candidates signifies just how far the Democrats have come in their willingness to reach out to religious voters since the '04 election, when Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry lost nearly 80 percent of white evangelical voters to President Bush and became the first Democrat in decades to lose the Catholic vote. In the 2006 congressional elections, Democrats redoubled their faith outreach programs and made gains among religious voters that contributed to important Senate victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
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