own behavior and speech that makes me afraid for rational analysis and discourse, because the candidates all have panderer-followers too, some of whom are willing (eager?) to put out supposedly progressive "thinking" like this:

Did you notice that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were in CHURCHES this weekend, commemorating the civil rights struggle. That's because the civil rights struggle itself was a product of relgious people acting and organizing through their churches.

(Target's Name Here) would sever the Democratic Party from this current and thereby, albeit unintentionally, discredit our presidential candidates and force them into a position on religion from which they could not recover politically.

. . .to use a southern-culture phrase I rightfully own but do not mean literally! . . .because look what she said in another thread today:

My hunch is that political oneupmanship causes more religious strife than it profits from. Eventually, people realize when they are being used.

Bear in mind that Obama was not speaking on the campaign trail, he was speaking in church at a pulpit. What did you think he was going to speak about in church, fishing? The video of Obama's speech is up at youtube, just go there and type "barack obama selma" in the search window.

The more pertinent question in my mind is why wasn't John Edwards in Selma? The Washington Post/ABC poll of african american voters shows Obama 44% Clinton 33% (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR200702...)

Events like this weekend will only draw those numbers up further, which isn't good for the other candidates when already nearly 80 percent of african american voters are supporting one of two candidates. African american voters make up majorities of the democratic primary voters in some southern states like alabama and south carolina and decisive minorities in others. I'd think it highly unlikely that any democrat can win the party's nomination with what could be substantially less than twenty percent of the black vote if the poll numbers are accurate. This adds up to Edwards should have IMO been in Selma this weekend. The New York Times and papers all over the country have pictures on the front page of Obama and Clinton walking over the Pettus bridge in Selma among all the african american leaders. If Edwards campaign staff was smart, they would have had him there. Hillary knew she had to be there once Obama was going down, and she was, right there on the bridge next to John Lewis. With Bill. It was a smart political move. The national poll numbers quoted among democrats in that post/abc poll I linked to above have:

Clinton 36%
Obama 24%
Gore 14%
Edwards 12%
Undecided 11%

When you are running behind someone who is not even in the race and neck and neck with undecided, you don't need to be missing important photo ops that resonate with important demographics. Btw, as that story reports, when they take Gore out of the mix, the numbers are:

Clinton 43%
Obama 27&
Edwards 14%

So its not like all those Gore supporters are closet Edwards supporters. I really like Edwards' ideas but he is trying to run from the left as the most liberal candidate out there and the liberals don't seem to be going for him. Liberals like enfranchisement and would seem more likely to be the ones most open to making history by nominating a woman or minority. Maybe Edwards made a strategic error, and should have been running to the right of Hillary as opposed to the left? If he can't count on the african american vote, after all, how is he going to win as the most liberal candidate?

A political operative who lives by this:
"Bear in mind that Obama was not speaking on the campaign trail, he was speaking in church at a pulpit."

may die then by this, especially saying it in the same post:
"If Edwards campaign staff was smart, they would have had him there. Hillary knew she had to be there once Obama was going down, and she was, right there on the bridge . .. It was a smart political move."

There were separate events in the same area. One was in a church where Obama was addressing a bunch of church-goers and spoke of his beliefs. The other was on the Pettus Bridge, the site of the historic Selma voting rights march. There is nothing inconsistent in saying that it was logical for Obama to be preaching while in church, if he is a religous man, and that Edwards ought IMO to have appeared for the march on the bridge. I am all for separation of church and state, but if a candidate who is a christian is invited to preach in a church, what is the big deal?

Don't you understand that a big problem the Democrats have had is the false perception Republicans put across in general elections that one party respects religion in peoples' lives and the other does not. If Democratic candidates are not to get near a church with a ten foot pole and say a word about the bible, or even their own beliefs lest it be a violation of separation of church and state, how do you fight that kind of perception? Also black communities/culture are still more church and religion-driven now than many white communities are anymore, that is just a fact. Historically, african americans haven't had much reason to trust the government, so the institution they hold more belief in is their local church. So when you court the black vote, you go to church and pay your respects. You don't have to believe what they, or any christian believes, but you better show up there and respect their institutions. That is all Obama and Hillary were doing.

Yet you blast Obama for going there. What, you think he should have stood outside the church, a good fifty feet away, and handed out leaflets? Obama is not saying he wants a theocracy. He is saying we do not get anywhere by disrespecting, as opposed to embracing the beliefs people have. If he doesn't go to a black church in Selma, its like you'd feel if he didn't come to your state. You'd say "What's he saying, we're a backwater full of hicks?" You'd feel disrespected. Those people in that church feel the same way about their church as you do about being southern. It is a part of who they are, and they want it respected. Just as you don't want your heritage or area of the country put down by northerners.

Obama was saying he respects them, and that their beliefs can be part of his larger message, just as your beliefs can be part of that message too. A good campaign should be like making a quilt, getting patches of fabric from the different parts of the community and making it into one thing that represents us all. Obama is a universalist (read his first book), he believes we are all part of a great whole, like this giant quilt. He wants you to be a part of that quilt. He wants that church and the church goers in Selma to be part of that quilt. When that quilt is put together, we all share equally in it. I wanted Obama to go to that church, and I want him to appear at an ACLU event and a NOW event and at rallies of atheists and agnostics. I don't want him to give more weight to those church-goers in Selma than me, but I don't want him to give them less either. You should want him to go to them and give them respect, just as you want to be shown that same respect yourself. And you should not fear it when he shows respect to others. You should embrace it.