Controversial Religious Advisers Bring Scrutiny
Political Candidates Distance Themselves From Controversial Views of Political Advisers
By JENNIFER PARKER
March 14, 2008—
The controversial views expressed by Sen. Barack Obama's pastor have renewed scrutiny of the role that religious leaders play in the 2008 presidential campaign.
Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., have spoken openly about their faith during the campaign, and both have reached out to religious voters, touting the endorsements and support from influential religious leaders in order to appeal to religious or so-called "values voters."
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who antagonized Christian evangelicals by calling Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance" during the 2000 campaign, has made broad overtures to his party's religious voters this time around.
As with the campaign surrogates who have made headlines recently for going off-message, the candidates have had to gingerly distance themselves from the controversial views of some of their religious advisers.
But while certain revelations can be politically embarrassing for a presidential candidate, the benefit of a religious image and ties to influential ministers generally outweigh any political risk, say many political watchers.
Controversial Religious Supporters
Obama tried this month to downplay controversial preachings of his pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose "inflammatory rhetoric," as Obama aides have called it, proclaims that the United States provoked the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism."
ABC News reported Thursday that Obama said Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," telling a Jewish group earlier this month that every family has someone like that.
Wright is listed as a national leader of the Obama campaign's "African American Religious Leadership Committee."
"Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy," Obama wrote in a statement circulated by the campaign.
"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue," Obama wrote.
Obama isn't the only candidate who has had to distance himself from comments by a religious adviser.
In February, McCain distanced himself from supporter John Hagee, a televangelist and San Antonio megachurch leader who has referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the great whore" and called it a "false cult system."
McCain Distances Himself From Televangelist's Views
"It's simply not accurate to say that because someone endorses me that I therefore embrace their views," McCain said at a February news conference in Phoenix.
Hagee's views have become a political problem for McCain, who stood with the televangelist and said at a news conference that he was "very honored" to receive his endorsement. Catholic groups are pressuring McCain to reject the endorsement. The Democratic National Committee has also publicized Hagee's comments and his endorsement of McCain.
McCain was raised Episcopalian but now attends a Baptist church in Arizona.
The Methodist church Bill and Hillary Clinton attended during Clinton's presidency got some attention last month when the senior pastor decided to offer services that acknowledge gay and lesbian relationships. Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., will lead services that "recognize and honor" committed gay relationships, although clergy do not perform union ceremonies.
Political watchers say these kinds of revelations are the price politicians pay for cozying up to religious leaders.
"It can obviously come back and bite you if the pastor or religious leader is outrageous," said Ted G. Jelen, a University of Nevada political science professor who has written extensively on religion and politics.
"But in general, it's a low-risk game."
Religious Image Outweighs Risk
Because most Americans view themselves as somewhat religious, Jelen said it's politically advantageous for candidates to highlight their faith.
In 2007, 70 percent of Americans agreed with the statement "It's important to me that a president have strong religious beliefs," according to a 2007 poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
By highlighting the backing of religious leaders, presidential candidates may form a deeper connection with voters who place a high priority on a candidate's faith.
"The idea that the candidate goes to church or, in Obama's case, is a Christian is the most important thing to many Americans," Jelen said.
Controversial views or sermons are often too complicated to gain any traction with most voters, Jelen said.
"If you're going to make a charge stick, it's got to sit on a button or a bumper sticker," Jelen said of Obama's pastor. "And this stuff really can't."
Some Democratic strategists say political ties to influential ministers can have a big payoff at the polls, espeically among churches with a sizable population of African-Americans that typically have ambitious get-out-the-vote efforts.
"By having ministers and religious leaders in your campaign, it's a statement of humility that you know there are forces greater than you," Democratic strategist Robert Weiner said.
"They have had an enormously wonderful positive impact on American political life," Weiner said, speaking broadly of the religious leaders aligned with many Democratic politicians.
Other Democratic strategists argue that no candidate can possibly know everything that's been said by someone on a campaign committee.
"This is just a collection of people who have some religious influence who are put together by the campaign for endorsement purposes," Democratic strategist Bill Carrick said. "To dig up what one of them might have said years ago, at some point it becomes a ridiculous gotcha game."
Carrick said that unlike high-profile surrogates who advise the candidate, the campaign roles given to religious advisers are far more superficial, designed to reinforce the notion that the candidate has the support of influential religious leaders.
While many American voters place importance on a candidate's faith, political strategists say few voters would hold a candidate responsible for something that was said by a religious adviser.
"There has to be a level of reasonableness to what the campaign or the candidate should be held accountable for," Carrick said. "There's just no way for the campaigns to look at everything these people have ever said."
Like Surrogates, Religious Advisers' Views Sometimes Impolitic
As with the recent cases of surrogates such as Samantha Power, who called Clinton "a monster," and former Rep. Geraldine Ferarro of New York who suggested Obama's race was the reason for his success, the views of some religious advisers can be embarrassing to political candidates embroiled in a election.
But unlike Ferraro and Power, Obama's pastor hasn't given up his role in the Illinois senator's campaign.
Wright married Obama and his wife, Michelle, and baptized their two daughters. Obama credits Wright for the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope."
In one of his sermons, Wright spoke about Clinton, suggesting some voters hate Obama because he "doesn't fit the model -- he ain't white, he ain't rich and he ain't privileged."
Wright said Clinton does fit that mold.
"Hillary never had a cab whiz past her and not pick her up because her skin was the wrong color," Wright said. "Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over in her car as a black man driving in the wrong ... I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it. Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home. Barack was. Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a n*****."
In a statement to ABC News' investigative unit earlier in the week, Obama's press spokesman said, "Sen. Obama has said repeatedly that personal attacks such as this have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they're offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church. Sen. Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Sen. Obama deeply disagrees. But now that he is retired, that doesn't detract from Sen. Obama's affection for Rev. Wright or his appreciation for the good works he has done."
Clinton has ignored Wright's statement, but did demand at an Ohio debate last month that Obama reject and denounce Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for anti-Semitic comments.
"I would not be associated with people who said such inflammatory and untrue charges against either Israel or Jewish people in our country," Clinton said at the debate.
In the end, Obama did "reject and denounce" the comments.
Going Public With Private Faith
For more than 30 years, presidential candidates have attempted to project an image of religiosity.
In the 1976 campaign, former President Jimmy Carter talked about being a born-again Christian; in 1980, former President Ronald Reagan spoke often of his faith and his notion of America as a "shining city" upon a hill. Former President Bill Clinton touted his faith, and President Bush attracted "values voters" in 2000 and 2004 with references to his personal faith.
In the lead up to the 2008 election, both Clinton and Obama have highlighted their faith.
Clinton has said that she probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles and the Monica Lewinsky scandal without relying on her faith in God.
"I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought," Clinton said last summer in a June forum sponsored by the liberal Sojourners/Call to Renewal evangelical organization.
Unlike Republican candidates who have mobilized religious voters in recent years, Jelen said Democratic candidates have highlighted their faith to battle against the stereotype that they are agnostic or aetheist.
After the 2004 elections, Clinton said it was a mistake to cede "values voters" to the Republicans.
She called it "a mistake for the Democrats not to engage evangelical Christians on their own turf -- essentially ceding the vote to President Bush," she said during a speech at Tufts University outside Boston.
In 2006, Clinton hired Burns Strider to organize her faith outreach. Strider is an evangelical Christian from Mississippi who previously ran faith outreach for the House Democratic Caucus on Capitol Hill. Obama hired Joshua DuBois as his campaign's national director of religious affairs.
The Obama campaign has struggled in recent months to put to rest Internet rumors that Obama is a Muslim.
The Obama campaign has also accused Clinton of promoting a rumor that Obama is Muslim, highlighting her answer to "60 Minutes" in March that there is no base to the rumors, "as far as I know," she said.
Obama stressed during a campaign appearance in Nelsonville, Ohio, that, "I am a devout Christian. I have been a member of the same church for 20 years. I pray to Jesus every night."