Barack Obama’s campaign is reaching out to religious voters, and they want religion journalists to know it.
Obama’s faith outreach coordinator Joshua DuBois and evangelical outreach coordinator Shaun Casey pitched the “Faith, Family, and Values Tour” to reporters at the Religion Newswriters Association today, which CT reported last night.
DuBois used an August Barna poll as support for why he believes more evangelicals are supporting Obama. Trinity College professor Mark Silk questioned this poll earlier. The press conference was held shortly after John Green presented on his research, which found that Obama was not making inroads among evangelicals. Casey says he sees more support for Obama among young evangelicals, but he says he will wait for the experts to quantify it after the election.
Former Orlando Sentinel religion reporter Mark Pinsky questioned Barna data’s reliability and said he saw no evidence among young evangelicals in central Florida supporting Obama.
Debra Mason, executive director of RNA, asked why religion journalists have a hard time get a call back from the Obama campaign and the crowd of journalists seemed to murmur an amen. DuBois said he is not on the communications team and wants to continue dialoging.
DuBois declined to say what the campaign’s budget is for faith outreach. Casey said they don’t do direct mail through church directories, something that President Bush’s campaign did in 2004.
Once again, it seems that John McCain’s religious outreach takes a much quieter approach, as Mason emphasized that she reached out to his campaign as well.
