Faith Race Tightens

See... I told you...

Since I last posted about Young Evangelicals becoming a new targeting group in battleground states FoxNews, who I'm certain reads Everyday Citizen on a regular basis, has picked up the story.

"Three swing states — Ohio, Missouri and Colorado — could tip the scales if religious youth show up the way they have in recent elections, said John Green, director of the Bliss Institute at University of Akron in Ohio.

"These 'battleground states’ are good reflections of the nation as a whole," Green told FOXNews.com. "The youth vote — both religious and non-religious — are likely to show the same patterns at the national level. If they [religious youth] can have an impact nationally, they will have an impact in the battleground states."

But a new poll by the Barna Group shows Obama leading McCain among all faith groups, except for evangelicals.

"Obama maintaining a substantial 43% to 34% lead among those who are likely to vote in November, with 5% selecting minor party candidates. That lead is a decline for Sen. Obama’s since early June, when he led his Republican rival 50% to 35% among likely voters. In the past two months, more voters have gravitated to third-party candidates (5%) and a higher proportion is now undecided (up from 15% to 21%)."

Interestingly enough, the LA Times reports this morning that the two candidates will chill on a stage together at Rick Warren's church in Orange County, CA

"But they will make a brief joint appearance, their first of the campaign, and Warren will interview each separately about the Constitution, poverty, AIDS, human rights and other subjects. . .
Many evangelicals believe that Warren's growing profile, and his willingness to welcome Obama to his pulpit, are evidence that he has emerged as the most pivotal figure in U.S. evangelicalism. . .

The forum with McCain and Obama, he said, is his latest attempt to introduce civility into public discourse, even if it irks some of his fellow evangelicals. Warren faced biting criticism in 2006 when Obama spoke at his church for a global AIDS summit. Last year Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) appeared at another AIDS conference at the church.

Warren has been called perhaps ‘America's most influential pastor,’ an evangelical megastar who leads the nation's fourth-largest church, reaches thousands of ministers through the Internet and crusades against poverty and AIDS. That globe-trotting work -- and his phenomenally successful book, ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ -- have propelled him into the vanguard of a movement that inspires young and socially conscious Christians."

All very interesting.... we're always bringing you the best info here at EDC.

Also crossposted to FM