When Faith in Public Life first scheduled a forum weeks ago for the presidential candidates, it sounded like it was going to be a pretty compelling event. While not a debate, per se, the event would press the candidates specifically on issues relating to compassion, morality, and culture in a way that most forums usually don’t. When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama agreed to participate, it was reasonable to expect quite a bit of interest.
But Faith in Public Life also got a little lucky — just 48 hours before their event, a media firestorm focused on an Obama comment about people in financially distressed communities “clinging” to their faith. All of a sudden, a high-profile event became a very high-profile event.
It’s always hard to know whether an event like this one, hosted at Messiah College in Pennsylvania and aired nationally on CNN, is going to shift a lot of votes, but we gained some interesting insights from the candidates, and got a closer look at the flap that has dominated the political world since late Friday afternoon. (John McCain was invited, but chose not to participate.)
In response to the first question at the forum, Mrs. Clinton repeated her charge that Mr. Obama’s remarks were “elitist, out of touch and, frankly, patronizing.” She said his words helped perpetuate the idea that Democrats looked down their noses at church-going Americans and hunters, an attitude that many Democrats believe contributed to their last two presidential losses.
Mr. Obama, when he got his chance on the stage, once again sought to clarify and defend his comments, which he made in the closed-door fund-raiser in San Francisco a week ago. He said his words had been distorted and misconstrued.
“That was in no way a demeaning of a faith that I myself embrace,” Mr. Obama said. “When economic hardship hits, they have faith, they have family, they have traditions that have been passed on from generation to generation. Those are not bad things. Those are the things that are left.”
Obama added that he sees religion as “a bulwark, a foundation, when other things aren’t going well.”
Of course, it wasn’t all about the so-called “bitter-gate” story; the candidates were also pressed on the specifics on several issues relating to faith and politics.
On abortion, for example:
Clinton was asked whether life begins at conception — which opponents of abortion contend is a reality that makes any termination of a pregnancy the ending of a life.
“I believe the potential for life begins at conception,” Clinton said. “For me, it is also not only about a potential life. It is about the other lives involved. … I have concluded, after great, you know, concern and searching my own mind and heart over many years, … that individuals must be entrusted to make this profound decision, because the alternative would be such an intrusion of government authority that it would be very difficult to sustain in our kind of open society.”
The New York senator added that abortion should remain legal, safe and rare.
The two candidates appeared separately at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pa., and briefly met as Clinton left the stage and Obama took her place. The moment of pleasantries and handshakes belied days of angry accusations between the two over Obama’s comments about bitter voters in small towns.
Asked whether life begins at conception, Obama said he didn’t know the answer.
“This is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on. I think it’s very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? … What I know, as I’ve said before, is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we’re having these debates.”
And on life’s origins:
He riffed comfortably about the balance between science and faith and his belief in evolution as well as the idea that God created the universe; he adeptly sidestepped a question about whether God intervenes in history in real time, saying that he believed that God did intervene but that his plans are “too mysterious” for him to grasp.
I know it’s the soft bigotry of low expectations, but I’m always encouraged when I hear a religious presidential candidate publicly declare that he or she embraces modern biology.
At the risk of getting overly meta, I think the event’s existence and the Dems’ role in it is, in and of itself, a step in the right direction. Clinton emphasized last night, for example, that she believes Al Gore and John Kerry came up short in their campaigns because of the perception that they couldn’t respect or relate to Americans’ religiosity.
I tend to think that’s overstated, but the perception of a “God gap” is a persistent challenge for the party, and forums like the one last night help chip away at the problem.
So, did everyone watch? Thoughts?