More On Obama/Evangelicals Outreach

Posted by Ashish on 07.01.2008

What is he really after?

I mentioned earlier today how Obama is launching a strong attempt aimed at winning over religious voters, specifically Evangelical Christians who remain lukewarm to John McCain. But there might be another angle at play here, reassuring voters who aren't really religious but may have concerns about the Obama rumors. Noam Scheiber over at The Stump explains it well.

But there's something about the campaign's evangelical outreach that makes me think there's a bit of a ricochet pander at work here, too. For those unfamiliar with the term, it came into being in 2000 to describe Bush's efforts to win over moderate white suburbanites by courting black voters, the overwhelming majority of whom were going to oppose him. (I think my colleague Michelle Cottle actually introduced the term into the popular discourse; I know she wrote one of the first pieces laying out the strategy.)

For the Obama campaign, I'd guess the targets of the ricochet are moderate, downscale whites who aren't evangelicals themselves--and probably not even especially religious--but for whom Obama's rapport with white evangelicals might be reassuring, especially amid all the false rumors of his secret Muslim identity.

Considering how much Obama has tried to model his campaign after the state-of-the-art Bush 2000 and 2004 campaigns, it wouldn't surprise me if the richochet angle is part of his goal with his religious outreach program.