Critiques of Obama's performance at Saddleback are coming in fast and furious, and most of them are negative. But I'd ignore those and instead go with Noam Scheiber's take, and this one. Nobody expected the evangelicals at this forum to declare themselves fervent Democrats after Obama's Q & A. Instead he sought, and I think succeed, at showing middle-of-the-road voters that he can relate to them. He also may have managed to dampen enthusiasm among evangelicals -- it's hard to fervently hate someone you've hosted in your church. While the performance may not have been his best, Obama did strike a lot of good notes.
In her response, Sarah Posner points to "the whole problem of anointing a pastor the arbiter of a presidential forum -- or the arbiter of elections in general." But that's a pretty big exaggeration. No one anointed him either thing, he just held a debate and invited candidates to come. Religious leaders are big players in civil society in this country because in many areas people want them to be. Looking at the questions, Warren didn't seem too much worse than some of the past journalistic moderators or the moderator at any special-interest organized event. Progressives can either ignore that religious leaders are influential, rail against Warren's role and alienate evangelicals, or they can try to engage religious people. I think Obama made the right choice.
One last thing via Andrew: Mark Hemingway demonstrates ably how evangelicals are used by the GOP without being understood or respected. Hemingway heard Obama say that determining the moment of conception is "above his pay grade" and responded, "News flash: There's not a job on the planet above the pay grade of the President of the United States." News flash right back at ya, Mark: Any person of faith is going to tell you there is at least one job above that pay grade -- can you guess who fills it? As Andrew points out, even the Pope doesn't feel that the Catholic Church can decide that question. Evangelicals are obviously going to disagree with the substance of Obama's answer, but they may well respect his humility before the Lord.
--Tim Fernholz
