Finding God on the US Campaign Trail

From Catholic World News:

Jul. 04 (CWNews.com) - E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post saw a conceptual breakthrough for Democrats in a speech Senator Barack Obama delivered to a conference of religious liberals.

Dionne is a thoughtful observer of the political scene, and although his own sympathies run toward the liberal cause, he has enough perspective to open his column with a touch of irony: "Many Democrats discovered God in the 2004 exit polls." Still he is a man of faith, and so he can continue: "Now, human beings often find God in unexpected places, so why shouldn't the exit polls be this era's answer to the burning bush?"

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Here's more from Dionne's Op/Ed in The Washington Post:

Yet there is often a terrible awkwardness among Democratic politicians when their talk turns to God, partly because they also know how important secular voters are to their coalition. When it comes to God, it's hard to triangulate.

So, when a religious Democrat speaks seriously about the relationship of faith to politics, the understandable temptation is to see him as counting not his blessings but his votes. Thus did the Associated Press headline its early stories about Barack Obama's speech to religious progressives on Wednesday: "Obama: Democrats Must Court Evangelicals."

Well, yes, Obama, the senator from Illinois who causes all kinds of Democrats to swoon, did indeed criticize "liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant." But a purely electoral reading of Obama's speech to the Call to Renewal conference here misses the point of what may be the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy's Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican. (You can decide on Obama's speech yourself: The text can be found at http://www.obama.senate.gov/speech .)

My Comments:
Before I take Barack Obama or the Democrat Party seriously about matters of faith, they need to have a sincere "Come to Jesus" moment on the issue of abortion.

If you think being a devout person of faith and aborting innocent unborn babies are compatible, you will NEVER recieve my vote. And there's a good chance I'm not alone in my thinking among voting Christians.