Saddleback Showdown

Rick Warren, the best-selling author and pastor of the Saddleback mega-church in California, held an intriguing event over the weekend.  Both Barack Obama and John McCain were invited to a one hour interview with Warren in the church, and were asked a series of questions that evangelicals want answered.  While Warren certainly does not speak for all evangelical Christians, he is a big voice in the Christian space, and this was a great opportunity to contrast the two candidates on family values-type questions.  As I understand it, both candidates were given the exact same questions, and neither candidate was allowed to hear the other candidates' answers.  The event was very illuminating.

Rich Lowry in the New York Post on the general impression of both candidates:

Obama was relaxed, intelligent and reflective; McCain was energetic and forceful but fell back more on his favorite campaign lines. Obama was every bit the impressive, likable young man; McCain was the elder statesman telling his best stories. Obama was comfortable talking about his faith; McCain said the bare minimum about it.

But the most telling contrast between the two was the depth McCain could draw on. Obama went first. After his winning performance - he drew a good-natured high-five from the best-selling Warren after joking that his definition of "rich" definitely includes authors who have sold 25 million copies of their books - it was unclear whether McCain could match his conversational acumen. But within about a minute, it was obvious that McCain would eclipse Obama.

He goes on to mention a couple of specific questions:

For both, the first question was, who would they listen to in the White House. Obama said his wife, his grandmother and a collection of senators, in that order. McCain first said Gen. David Petraeus, who presumably knows more about matters of war and peace than Mrs. Obama.

Both were asked early on about an instance when they had bucked their party. Obama mentioned a brief interlude of working with McCain on a forgettable piece of ethics legislation. McCain noted his work on out-of-control spending, torture, and climate change - and had barely scratched the surface. He recalled differing with Reagan on sending Marines to Lebanon in the early 1980s, a reminder of how long he has been immersed in national-security issues.

Another early question was about the hardest decision they had ever made. Obama said his decision to oppose the Iraq war, but as a liberal state senator in Illinois at the time, no one would have expected him to do otherwise. McCain said refusing early release as a Vietnam POW, in a riveting answer.

This seems to sum up Lowry's impression:

Within the first 15 minutes, McCain had established a moral seriousness stemming from his long experience as a national leader and his conduct in Vietnam as a POW that Obama simply couldn't match. Throughout the night, McCain brought up Iraq, al Qaeda and the Georgia crisis, while Obama was determinedly inward-looking. Asked whether he thinks evil exists, Obama cited Darfur, then street crime in the United States. McCain invoked Osama bin Laden.

McCain sounded like a potential president, Obama more like a potential therapist, seeing all sides and offering them the balm of his thoughtfulness and verbal acuity. He looked very young and slender. It was almost as if Democrats had gone from merely appealing to graduate students to nominating one.

The biggest question of the evening was that of abortion.  Here are some quotes that draw a stark difference between the two candidates on the issue of when life begins:

When asked by Pastor Warren when he believes a baby receives human rights, Obama did not provide a specific response. "I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade," says Obama.

McCain's answer to the same question:

Unlike his rival Barack Obama, McCain declared strongly that he believes a baby is entitled to human rights at the moment of conception.

"At the moment of conception. I have a twenty-five year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate and as president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro-life policies. That's my commitment. That's my commitment to you," said McCain.

Very telling, is it not?  Obama can't give a straight up answer to this simple question.  Mark Hemingway comments on this answer, saying that if knowing when life begins is 'above his pay grade', then shouldn't his response be to err on the side of caution when trying to decide when to end a life?

That's a good point, if you ask me, and it illustrates just how pro-abortion the Obamessiah is.  There were some other questions that drew very different responses from the candidates, but the only other one I want to point out is that of defining marriage.  Obama:

Obama said he believes marriage should be defined as a sacred union between a man and a woman, but says he would not support a constitutional amendment with such language.

"Historically we have not defined marriage in our Constitution," he explained. "It's been a matter of state law that has been our tradition. Now, let's break it down. The reason that people that think there needs to be a constitutional amendment some people believe is because of the concern about same-sex marriage."

Obama says while he is not someone who promotes same-sex marriage, he does back civil unions for homosexuals.

McCain:

McCain reaffirmed his belief that the California Supreme Court was wrong to legalize same-sex marriage.

Like his Democratic opponent, McCain stated that marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman. "I'm a federalist. I believe that states should make those decisions. In my state I hope we will make that decision. In other states they have -- to recognize the unique status of marriage between man and woman," he contends. "...that doesn't mean that people can't enter into legal agreements, that they don't have the rights of all citizens."

If a federal court decided that Arizona must abide by the Massachusetts court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, McCain said he would support a federal marriage amendment.

The questions of abortion and defining marriage go a long way toward establishing how these candidates will match up with the so-called family values voters, and it is clear from these answers that the candidates have very different views on these topics.

The after-effects of the debate are very interesting to watch, too.  The New York Times and others immediately started whining about how McCain must have cheated because he performed so much better than Obama.  Of course, they don't seem to even comprehend the idea that McCain might -- just maaaaaybe -- be more experienced and more grounded on 'family values' issues.  It's no wonder Obama has dodged every challenge to a live debate that McCain has offered to this point.  McCain has to be licking his chops at the thought of the three presidential debates this fall!

Byron York has investigated a little bit on this charge of cheating, and has found some very interesting things:

First of all, it appears that some commentators believe there was an actual "Get Smart"-style "cone of silence" at Saddleback.  There wasn't.  Pastor Rick Warren was making a little joke when he used that phrase.  But he was assuring the crowd that McCain was not hearing any of the questioning of Barack Obama.

Next, McCain, like Obama, knew the first two questions that would be asked of him — the "three wisest people" question and the "greatest moral failure" questions.  Both men knew exactly what was coming at the start of the appearance. This morning I talked to A. Larry Ross, who is the media representative for the Saddleback Church, and he told me that Warren "gave both candidates the first two questions because he didn't want them to be nervous…so they would be at ease."  Ross says that in separate phone calls with the McCain and Obama, Warren also went through the four general categories of questions and said things like, "I'll probably ask you a question on this, or on that," but gave no specific wording.

In addition, according to Ross, Obama knew a third specific question that Warren would ask — the one about a "president's emergency plan for adoption."  "[Warren] felt that since that was basically asking for a commitment, he felt that it was fair to tell them in advance that he was going to ask them that," Ross told me.  So Warren told Obama, and planned to tell McCain when McCain arrived at Saddleback, but wasn't able to because of other distractions.  So according to what Ross told me, Obama actually knew one more question in advance than did McCain.

So, if anyone cheated, it is the Obamessiah, who had a one question edge on McCain.  I think the reason that McCain looked so much better is that he is speaking from a lifetime of real experience based on a core of consistent values.  Obama, on the other hand, sounds great but has almost no national experience, and only a handful of years of state-level experience.  That was his major disadvantage, and that's why he looked so poor.  More analysis here and here, if you're curious about additional specific questions and details.

On a different topic that is very applicable this year, the candidates showed another stark difference on taxes.  I heard an audio clip of this on the radio, but haven't found a link to it yet; I'll post one if I do.  The summary is that, when asked what is defined by 'rich', Obama said that those making $250,000 or more would be rich.  McCain, on the other hand, suggested that defining an exact number isn't as important as keeping taxes as low as possible on everyone and giving everyone the opportunity to become 'rich'.  This was a brilliant answer, and exactly the kind of mindset that we need guiding American tax policy!

It is interesting to note that the subject of evangelical voters is quite applicable to the upcoming election.  Some research done by the Barna Group shows a recent shift in this block of voters, and it is not a small shift:

"Back in the beginning of June, [Obama] was leading McCain in the presidential race by about 50 to 35 percent -- a 15-point lead," Barna points out. "That's now dropped to about 43 to 34, which is a nine-point lead."
 
It is interesting, notes Barna, that those now not supporting Obama are not moving to the McCain camp; instead they are undecided. "And we're finding that a large share of that movement toward the undecided column is among people of faith," Barna adds.
 
According to the Christian pollster, Senator McCain has lost support among conservative evangelicals. "What we've found over the last two months is that there's actually been a drop in their support for Senator McCain," Barna contends. "Back in June, Senator McCain had about 78 percent of the evangelical vote committed to him. Now it's down to about 61 percent."

Clearly, conservative Christians aren't thrilled about either candidate.  I share this lack of enthusiasm.  I'm afraid this choice is simply going to come down to a true lesser-evil decision.  While the thought of McCain as President makes me nauseous, the thought of Obama as President is even worse.  I suggest that you all start deliberating about this, because it's not an easy decision to make.  I haven't totally made up my mind about it yet, but I'll be sure to pass along my thoughts when I do.

Regardless, I would guess that as Obama is forced to defend his record on abortion and gay marriage more and more, those family values voters will start filtering into McCain's camp in greater numbers.  The abortion question, in particular, is really heating up, and I have another post about that planned for the near future.  Stay tuned for that.

The one caution for John McCain is that he has recently floated some trial balloons for selecting a pro-choice VP.  He is considering that because he is still trying to skim voters from the Democrat and Independent ranks rather than consolidating his conservative base.  No official word yet, but that appears to be a possibility.  If he does that, he will more than likely obliterate any potential gains with family values voters that this event may have made for him, driving even more voters away from him and into the undecided category.

There's my two cents.