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On the other hand, she has an advantage he didn't, at least at the beginning. Once Clinton got into the White House, he recognized that the people who were in charge of his outreach had the traditional Democratic unfamiliarity. When they would set up a faith breakfast, they would invite religious liberals. He really learned quickly that he had to supplement that himself. He eventually hired some religious liaisons and would insist on reviewing invitation lists himself and pencil in names of people who were left off.

Hillary, from the beginning of her campaign, has had a religious team led by Burns Strider. Burns is somebody who absolutely knows the language, but more importantly, knows the players and knows the constituencies, how you talk to them and how you appeal to them. That gives her a head start from where her husband was.

Like many others writing about the 2008 campaign, you note that evangelicals are broadening their concerns to include the environment, the Iraq war, poverty, and AIDS. But most evangelicals are still pro-life and concerned about policies on homosexuality. When voters reach the booth, do you believe, for instance, that an environmental policy will trump a pro-choice stance?

I think the result of the broadening of the evangelical agenda is that it really gives evangelicals more options in terms of the political parties they can support. Younger evangelicals are still very strongly pro-life, but they aren't prioritizing abortion as the issue that drives their votes the same way older evangelicals are.

They are in a better position to hold both parties accountable. For the Democrats, they can say, "We want to reduce the abortion rate." For the Republicans, "We care about poverty and the environment, and we're not excited about the war."

How would you respond to evangelicals who may be skeptical about religious outreach from either party because they believe the parties are simply pandering to another constituency?

I don't hear those concerns from people who have actually sat down and talked with Democrats who are doing that outreach. There's a legitimate concern that evangelicals have no interest in being taken advantage of by any party. It's really just a matter of Democrats showing some respect. They don't need to go into meetings thinking they're going to change minds. They need to be willing to say, "We're here to just listen to what's on your mind; we're all operating from a position of good faith."

Has there been any backlash from within the Democratic Party against this religious outreach? Is it just one more form of identity politics?

It was thought that evangelical voters wouldn't vote for Democrats in a million years, so why would you waste your time talking to them?

But in Michigan and Ohio [in 2006] there were two pro-choice, both pro-gay rights [gubernatorial] candidates who spent a year sitting down, really doing these "get to know you" meetings, and they were able to get almost 50 percent of the evangelical vote in their states. They had success, not by moving their policies, but by being willing to listen, engaging religious voters, and working on ways to reduce the abortion rate. Now that it's been a few years, there is a better sense of what religious outreach is, and you see a lot less opposition within the Democratic Party.

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April (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52