First, let me state clearly that, if you didn’t already know, I am completely behind Barack Obama for the presidency. I state this so that there is no doubt about my bias in this writing. I certainly try to remain open-minded when listening to McCain but, at the end of the day, I am a Democrat and 100% Obama supporter.
The forum went well for both candidates. Both made good points that got them applause, albeit more frequently for McCain. Evangelicals are known to support Republican candidates more; it’s a known fact. Despite that, Obama received plenty of adulation and applause from what could be argued was a hostile crowd: in the sense that a lot of what Obama stands for (civil unions for gay couples, pro-choice) flies in the face of what most of that 2,200-strong audience believes.
I honestly could not find too much fault with John McCain’s answers. Naturally I disagreed with a lot of what he said simply because he is a conservative and I am not. What I did not like, however, was the fact that when asked whether or not there was evil in the world he immediately went to terrorism for examples. Personally, I felt Warren’s question manipulated this type of answer because he asked ‘do we negotiate with it’. That immediately goes towards terrorism. Part of my gripe with current Republican policy is a tendency towards driving fear into the American public about potential terrorist attacks in an effort to subvert public opinion. I see McCain will not waver from this policy. I preferred Obama’s answer that evil exists throughout the world and, rather than singling out the obligatory terrorism, he chose to mention domestic abuse. He said that evil drives someone to beat their wife. While terrorism may be the de facto topic of the day it is not the be-all and end-all of what can be defined as evil.
My second, and final, point is to do with Warren’s question of whether or not faith-based organisations should have to forfeit their right to discriminate against people who do not believe similarly when seeking federal funds. Basically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that faith-based organisations may choose to hire someone who is less qualified than another simply because he or she believes similarly. For example, a pro-life organisation could legally not hire someone who is pro-choice. The question is whether or not these groups should be able to continue to have this protection if they get federal funding. Obama said they should not while McCain said that they should.
McCain stated that he saw faith-based organisations in New Orleans after Katrina and was told by many people that they were doing a better job than the government. I did not like this statement one bit. Granted, the Salvation Army and others do fantastic work in disaster areas but, in this instance, a very legitimate reason for McCain’s statement was because the government at that time completely failed its people. Due to Bush’s ignorance of the problem coupled with his incredibly poor, cronyistic choice for the head of FEMA, the US government was indeed not best able to help the people in need. For McCain to use this appalling time in recent American history to try to push faith-based organisations is inexcusable. As for whether or not these groups should be allowed to discriminate, I do not think they should. As soon as they receive federal funding they become a publicly funded body and should not be allowed to discriminate against anyone.
McCain opened up by sharing some of his personal stories during his interview while Obama too appeared more open, more vulnerable. Both men probably scored some points with the crowd by openly discussing their faith but, in the end, the ‘winner’ was always going to be McCain. Obama as a Democrat and as a pro-choice candidate was never going to win over the crowd as much as McCain. I think the forum was a very good idea and I was very happy to see Obama perform as well as he did and try to allay some of the fears in the Evangelical camp that all liberals are evil, terrorist-supporting, baby-killing, marriage-crushing monsters. That was the greatest victory last night. Obama showed the Evangelical demographic that they do not have to align themselves with the Republican party. They can open their minds to other candidates. If enough of them do that come November Obama should have no problem.