Prodigal party

What party of secularists? Five political strategists have ’08 Democrats talking old-time religion | Mark Bergin

Burns Strider. Joshua DuBois. Shaun Casey. Eric Sapp. Mara Vanderslice. Not household names, these five professed evangelicals may hold the key to Democratic victory in the 2008 presidential election. Their mission: Convince white evangelical voters that a liberal agenda is consistent with the Bible and that the expressed Christian devotion of Democratic candidates is authentic.

Three of the five are official religious outreach advisors to prospective presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Kerry. The other two run a consulting firm that advises those hoping to quarry evangelical votes. Their goal is to turn the 74-25 advantage among white evangelicals that GOP candidates for the House of Representatives had in 2004—a margin that slipped 7 percentage points in 2006—into a 50-50 proposition. Their method is to equate federally-funded poverty, health-care, and foreign-aid programs with biblical mandates to help the poor.