Evangelicals Find A President At Saddleback

LAKE FOREST, Calif. -- The telling moment Saturday night at the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency comes just before the end when the mega-church's pastor Rick Warren asks Senator John McCain "What about -- you -- we're seeing Russia reasserting itself in Georgia, and maybe now Poland. What's happening?" Those two words what's happening are the crux of the evening. Although the forum's format has been to ask the same questions in the same order back-to-back of Senators Obama and McCain -- Obama going first by coin toss and McCain during that hour placed "in a cone of silence" -- here on the crisis in Georgia Pastor Rick, as his congregation calls him, branches out. The consequence of Obama's inclination to nuance and McCain's to brevity for the pastoral conversation is that Pastor Rick has time to ask McCain an additional question. And the question the preacher poses is very different from all the others. He doesn't ask for opinion or personal philosophy, he wants to know what's going on in Georgia. He wants knowledge. He wants expertise. The assumption is that the presumptive Republican nominee for president has that knowledge and expertise. The asking of the question itself is an imprimatur, dramatically so, of John McCain for President according to the very terms Rick Warren has set forth for the evening's dialogues -- "to discuss issues of leadership" more than just the specific positions on abortion, marriage and stem-cell research with which Evangelicals like Pastor Rick and his congregation have long been associated.

John McCain lets Pastor Rick and the audience in on what's happening. In overview, he ties the current Russian incursion to "the centuries-old ambition of the Russian Empire to dominate that part of the world." He makes Georgia real to the congregants at Saddleback by talking about its conversion to Christianity in the third century. "You go to Georgia and you see these old churches that go back to the fourth and fifth century," McCain says, before quickly locating the present crisis in the issue of energy and the Georgian oil pipeline, for Russians are using energy "as a tremendous lever against the Europeans." Although this is an oversimplification of the role of the Baku pipeline in any Russian strategy of aggrandizement, McCain's reply is the kind of direct, succinct, forthright and coherent response this Evangelical audience has been looking for.

For two hours before the forum and an hour following, I chat with the Saddleback audience about politics and the upcoming election. Although all the people with whom I speak are social conservatives, most have come to the civil forum with open minds about the presidential candidates. Pastor Rick has told the members of his church, who comprise maybe 90 percent of the audience, to look for evidence of leadership tonight. Indeed the four different topics that in Warren's mind structure his questions -- stewardship, leadership, worldview and America's role in the world -- all point back to the L word. Again and again, that's what the congregants tell me they are looking for. The upcoming election is too important, the country's situation is too messed up, not to focus on the larger picture. The media, on the other hand, will see the evening primarily through the lens of the old narrative about abortion, marriage and stem cells. Indeed Pastor Rick will ask about those hot-button issues. Neither Obama nor McCain gives all the answers that in an ideal world these social conservatives would like to hear. But this is a different election, in a different year. On Saturday night at Saddleback Church thousands of Evangelicals, in the main auditorium and in outlying "tents" watching the video feed, and presumably on CNN, find a leader in John McCain.

This dynamic is not what I had been expecting when I trudged with my heavy paraphernalia up the steep climb from distant parking lot to sanctuary under the high noon desert heat of southern Orange County, California. What I am expecting is "the handshake," the first onstage meeting between McCain and Obama since respectively winning their parties' nominations. As a journalist, I'm looking for that element of closure to the summer campaign. If only Obama had agreed to those summer town hall meetings, I'm thinking as I pull my laptop case up another set of stairs. (And the Senator's going to be thinking the same thing if he loses in November.) The moment of rapprochement, the shake and the hug, would long since have passed. What I am not expecting is anything of note from either candidate on the subject of faith and politics.

Such a forum is hardly new for Election 2008, especially for Senator Obama, who endured two such "conversations" during the Democratic race: the Sojourners Presidential Forum June 4, 2007, at George Washington University and the Compassion Forum April 13, 2008, at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania -- both airing like the forum tonight on CNN. Obama has spoken about his faith on numerous occasions, in the primary campaigns (the Forty Days of Faith outreach in South Carolina), in formal speeches (Address to the A.M.E. Church in St. Louis July 8, 2008), and behind closed doors (the Chicago meeting with Franklin Graham and other religious leaders June 10, 2008). Given the persistent rumors about Obama's Islamism, his campaign seems to have decided that the candidate can not speak about his Christian faith too often. Therefore, frequently having heard Obama on faith, I already know the outlines of what he's going to say, no matter Pastor Rick's questions, even as I can predict much less about McCain's remarks. But I doubt that even Rick Warren will be able to drag much out of the Arizona Senator, who has wielded humor and war stories as a shield to scrutiny for too long to be foiled now.

Furthermore, I reject Rick Warren's premise: that Americans (or indeed the citizens of any nation) either want or expect their leader to make decisions of state based on the promptings of conscience with which we ordinary folk direct our lives. Protecting the body politic can require moments of personal betrayal, like jettisoning an agenda on which a trusting colleague has given his or her all, and hard decisions that contain elements of both wrong and right. It can mean sending men and women into harm's way and to their deaths. From a teleological point of view, the old idea of the divine right of kings has always seemed to me to contain one truth -- that even as leaders bear burdens of conscience for the sake of the people they govern so they over time find a different compact with God.

But the audience at Saddleback is not thinking in these terms. "I seek to be open-minded," John, a church member and volunteer who has brought his daughter Courtney to hear the candidates, says. "But leadership is critical, and I'm interested in hearing what a new international platform for the U.S. might be." Emma, who volunteers in the church nursery, is looking for "leadership on national security." She thinks she knows for whom she is going to vote but is not sure. Betsy and her husband, who works for Disney as Betsy herself once did, are looking for "character, through what they [McCain and Obama] say on the issues." Betsy, who has been a college teacher but now home-schools her two middle schoolers, also hasn't made up her mind about the Election. Nor has Matt, here with his teenage nephew Bryce, who like all the audience members with whom I speak is a church volunteer. Bryce plays ball with the church four-year-olds on Saturdays. "I'm a Republican," Matt says, "but I'm ready for change, particularly on foreign affairs." Husband and wife Steve and Laurie care about abortion but also want to hear how the candidates would lead on Iraq. Kent and Sherry rank the issues as national security, fiscal responsibility and abortion. They are looking for "principles versus experience." They want to hear how the candidates will "lead in reconciling competing positions."

Right off the bat, Barack Obama misjudges this audience by not approaching them as seriously as they are approaching him. To Warren's first question, "Who are the three wisest people you know in your life and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration," Obama answers his wife, his grandmother and four Senators, for whose choosing Obama doesn't give the audience much reason. Of course, this is a bad question because, not surprisingly, the audience hears it as "who are three wise people on whom you will rely in your administration" -- which is not exactly what Warren asks. But this answer is one of two that will bring many of the people in the audience to reject Barack Obama as their presidential choice. They are appalled that he names his grandmother. These serious-minded folk have come here tonight to make an important decision. Even though Warren, McCain and Obama are tieless in open-necked shirts, most of the audience has dressed for the occasion. The people I talk to have acquired tickets through the church volunteers' lottery. Most everybody else has paid for their tickets, at $2000, $1000 and $500 levels, according to some reports (which I am unable to confirm). A Filipino-American ex-military man tells me that he has paid $300 for his ticket to watch the video feed from tent no. 2. By and large, these are not wealthy people, and they have worked hard to get here to make a decision, as their pastor has led them, on choosing a leader. They haven't come to hear about Grandma.

John McCain, on the other hand, judges the evening perfectly, answering each question from a presidential perspective -- quickly and to the point. His three wise people are General Petraeus, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia and Meg Whitman, for each of whom he gives succinct reasons related to who we are as Americans. McCain's reply to Warren's second-to-last question, "Why do you want to be President," is also simple and direct. "I want to inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self interest," McCain says. Then he goes on to relate this assertion to "enormous challenges" at home and abroad, like in Georgia; to his own service in the Navy; to his record of reaching across the aisle in the Senate; to his meeting with the African-American women of Gee's Bend, Alabama, who "probably won't vote for me," but whom he'll never forget. "I know that my job is to tell them that I'll be the President of every American and I'll always put my country first." To press ears, this is boilerplate McCain; to Saddleback, this is a clear mission statement.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is uncharacteristically rambling. "You know, I remember what my mother used to tell me," Obama begins. "I was talking to somebody a while back and I said the one time that she'd get really angry with me is if she ever thought that I was being mean to somebody or unfair to somebody." Then he segues into his familiar themes of "the American dream slipping away" and our "broken politics" without giving a vision of how he would address those problems. "I think I have the ability to build bridges across partisan lines," he says, "to get people to work on some common sense solutions to critical issues, and I hope that I have the opportunity." Not only is this not a mission statement. Obama's words are vague and tentative. They give the impression that, having the presidency almost within his grasp, and having arrived at this near point driven by fierce ambition and a sense of personal destiny, Barack Obama is not quite sure exactly where he should lead us.

The evening is not perfect for either man. Saddleback doesn't like everything McCain says, particularly his support for stem-cell research and his belief, as a federalist, that decisions about the definition of marriage should be left to the states. But he never says anything as off-putting to this audience as Barack Obama's reply to Warren's query about conception and human rights that "answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade." After the forum is over, the event handlers send a dozen or so church members to talk with the press. Every person who speaks with me mentions Obama's reply, saying, in essence, that nothing is above the pay grade of a Commander-in-Chief. A couple of the comments strike me as particularly revealing.

Genevieve: "I came here today not being a fan of McCain, but hearing what I heard today, he made a convert out of me. . . . I think he gave very precise, very decisive answers."

Grant: "I think we're blessed to have two good candidates. They both seem to be men of integrity, principle and so forth, but I tend to favor John McCain. I'm more impressed with Obama as time goes on. He's a smart man, but he lacks experience. I'd like to see a real leader in there [the presidency]. Sometimes older people who have answers and opinions who are strong are really important to Americans at a time when the country is really in a stressed condition."

Sandra: "This was an eye opener to the leadership abilities. On-the-line answers -- direct -- without a lot of thought. I saw such a big difference in the candidates. One has a lot of charisma, and at one point in time I was certainly committed to vote for him, and I think today really opened my eyes. Because there was not any dancing around [with McCain], and I'd rather have as our president someone who is direct, who knows how to make a decision, or knows where to go for the answers. . . . I was quite taken with Obama, in the beginning. His words, his charisma and his change. Perhaps his time will come, but I don't think he's seasoned enough to be a leader in the times we're living in right now." Sandra has known Pastor Rick longer than he has had his church.

In the spin room post-forum, Sam Brownback, Gary Bauer and Obama's faith outreach director Josh Dubois speak to the press, as well. With the caveat that spin is the cheap champagne of the political party circuit, I decide that Gary Bauer, in answer to a question about whether Obama didn't sound more comfortable than McCain talking about faith, has a point. "That's Christian identity politics, and I'm sure it has some influence," Bauer says, "but I don't think at the end of the day it's the deciding factor. Jimmy Carter could have come in here and sounded much more comfortable with his faith, but people, having seen a Jimmy Carter presidency, would not vote for him just because they are likely to see him in Heaven."

Comments

[Lalita]

It might be just me here, but I have to say it: When we're talking about "evangelicals" we really seem to be talking about white evangelicals. Lest we forget--Black evangelicals are voting for Senator Obama in overwhelming numbers.

This election is about parsing the code
Evangelicals = White, proselytizing Christians
Hillary supporters = White women "of a certain age"

Even when the Hillaristas spouted equal pay data for women, they only quoted that for white women. Hispanic and Native American women, with similary education, skills and past experience, received less money per hour than any other gorup of women.

Shameful.

[ibsteve2u]

I still marvel at the ability of evangelicals to vote Republican - the Party that, first and foremost, worships mammon, and will do whatever they can to defeat any attempt to restrain their destruction of the planet God supposedly gave all of us.

[chelliza]

Will the evangelicals sense at all that McCain was telling them what they want to hear, just like Bush did. He will drop them just as fast and the meek will not inherit the earth, the wealthy will. This may be good for those in Orange County, but hardly for those all over the country. However, they will deserve exactly what they get.

[kjdwyer]

Well, here we are.

I suppose that it was impossible for Obama to say no to this inivitation. Christian Evangelicals represent 23% of the electorate (and growing) so Obama needs at least a 25% share in order stay competetive in the general election.

Having said that, Democrats, in supporting women's reproductive rights, gay rights, etc., will never -- I repeat NEVER -- win over Christian Evangelicals.in any significant number on the issues, so trying to "nuance" your position to sound like something that you think they want to hear will only ring false.

These are people for whom, with respect to certain issues (i.e., abortion, gay rights, etc.), there is no nuance. Nuance would mean that there is actually a side to an issue other than theirs. Regarding those issues, everything has to fit within the standard Judeo/Christian binaries of right or wrong, black or white, christian or heretic, and it's frankly better to sound like a heretic with conviction, than a panderer trying to say what you think people want to hear.

That's why it would have been smart for Obama to simply state, very clearly and firmly, his positions on those issues he KNEW FROM THE BEGINNING he wasn't going win. By trying to "nuance" his positions, this audience could smell his lack of convicition and attempt to curry favor and that frankly stinks in any context.

[Dash Riprock]

The evangelicals are craven lunatics. They want armageddon and they want to turn this country into the Christian equivalent of Iran with religious police. The audience begrudgingly accepted Obama's true Christian beliefs while cheering McCains warmongering. Hmmm Christians indeed.

[CharlesJ]

Think back when McCain responded to questions during the primary, as well to answering questions during town hall meeting! Now think about the answers at this forum! Does anyone besides me see a distinct difference in the two people answering those questions? In the former the stammered, hesitated, and often too a long time to answer, some times he failed to answer at all and just came up with a blank opps look on his face. In the latter he sounded well rehearsed and prepared. It was also stated by Warren that McCain knew his quesitons before they were asked (or something to that effect).
Sorry, this man was not honest, he knew the questions before they were asked, he even at one point and time wanted to know if Warren wanted him to answer the next question while he was giving his answer to the current question. Am I the only one that saw this or got it? This was a sham is all I can say, they can have him because I surely don't want him.

[magen]

A prayer-

G-d, please remove the plague of evangelicals that you've imposed upon the United States of America.

[stormkite]

Amen.

[doctor4kids]

I think some of the questions were chosen specifically to make McCain look good. For example, the question about orphans gave McCain the opportunity to talk about adopting his daughter from Mother Theresa's orphanage.

What bothered me the most though was that Pastor Rick didn't ask anything about healthcare! As a pediatrician and the wife of a cancer survivor, I can hardily attest that the American healthcare system is broken. It seems incredible that Pastor Rick could ignore this issue. After all, wasn't healing the sick one of Jesus' most important missions?

[chelliza]

If you notice in the orphan question too, McCain didn't make the pledge that Pastor Rick asked for as Obama did.

[yhgtup]

I like the remark Pastor Rick made on Larry King Live last night. He said that John McCain actually "teared-up" a few times when answering questions. Yeah! Right! McCain didn't "tear-up", that was those eye drops in his eyes to help him stay awake.

[DoTheMath]

That's fine. They can have him. Were all the non-evangelicals paying attention?

[chelliza]

We may have been watching, but we were not impressed.

[krocklin]

Indeed this is a very confusing analysis. Sounds exactly like the mainstream media one.
None of it dealt with McCain's shoddy personal history, nor the moral essence of his votes in congress against healthcare, veterans benefits, social security, the development of renewable energy and his votes in favor of war, further tax breaks for the wealthy and oil companies.
Or his associations as a member of the Keating five and Phil Gramm, whose recent remarks exposed him.

[Slagfish]

One has to give Obama credit for courage in going before this audience, but one has to question his judgement. He was not going to win any votes. These are hard core republicans. Voting for a democrat is not in their dna. This was a lose lose situations for him. This election is Obama's to lose and a few more performances like this one and he may just manage to lose it.

[NeoLiberal]

Unlike Bush/Cheney/McCain, who filter their audiences for supporters only, Obama welcomes everyone. Differing opinions and beliefs and backgrounds.

I wonder how "courageous" McCain would be if he decided to appear at an American Muslim group to explain his positions on the Middle East and against TSA profiling or government fearmongering?

[debrouillard]

I am getting tired of all whats happening in America and in the MSM.

Come November,America will get what they will bet on.

[eden4barack08]

Obama addressed these people as though they were really religious folks. You know, like the humble, God fearing, God respecting way religious people used to be and those still true are.
He made a mistake, he gave them too much credit and respect, which they don't deserve, religion for these folks is an excuse, a crutch, not a real credo or a way of life.
They're looking for reasons and justifications to confirm their prejudices, by pretending to have an open mind. But as you so well put it, they were there looking for a reason to vote for John McCain, and they would have found it no matter how. Of course their pastor was there to help them in this endeavour by doing all he could to favor McCain, and pulled it off for them.

[rgblue]

bingo.

now if the MSM could just get wise enough to understand this....

[justobserve]

Well said! Like Krocklin and Slagfish above: I thought McCain's character would have a beating in front of these religious people but there was nothing of the sort. It sounded as if he was shooing to a predetermined outcome.

[Blaaksky]

You hit this so clearly I had tears in my eyes while reading your post.

However, I do have to say that our guy has to remember that he is running for President all the time! When someone asks him to relax and be himself and not pander or campaign, he needs to question their motives. Especially if the person asking him to do it is a conservative. He has to think to himself that McCain and his thugs are not going to follow the rules like he is. The words out of his mouth should be..."I'd better watch my back".

There was absolutely nothing wrong with anything Obama said or did. We've seen him be laid back, stutter and think thoroughly before. That wasn't a surprise. It was supposed to be a discussion about faith and he followed the rules. The problem was McCain didn't. He used the opportunity to show his off experience about the military. He was allowed to have a whole hour be about his war stories. And to think, if Obama wasn't there no one would have given a damn about McCain because the cameras follow Obama. It was a gotcha game at Obama's expense. The McCain campaign must be praying to God for that gift.

[egal]

This is a very confusing and incoherent analysis. Obama's responses were generally heartfelt, human, and personal, and it's not a failure in his replies that the audience wanted something more pugnacious, less spiritual, and decidedly unChristian.

To suggest that Obama wasn't "serious" enough when he did things like naming his grandmother as one of the wisest people he knows is incomprehensible. How is it not serious to name those who set him on his life path and helped form his mind, heart, soul, and body? The audience didn't honestly want him to list his future advisers, no more than the question suggested that answer--they were simply so primed to only accept rousing battle cries that they would accept nothing less than McCain's pungacious grandstanding despite the lack of a faith and contemplation Obama showed.

[justobserve]

"How is it not serious to name those who set him on his life path and helped form his mind, heart, soul, and body?"
Agree 100%! I thought so too!