The conventional wisdom is that John McCain and his campaign are exceedingly reluctant to discuss McCain’s experiences in Vietnam when, in reality, they cite it repeatedly – even in cases where it has absolutely no bearing on the issue at hand.  
On the same note, it is widely accepted that McCain is equally reluctant to discuss his personal faith yet, whenever the topic arises, he inevitably relates the story about the kindly Vietnamese prison guard who loosened his ropes and sketched a cross in the dirt.

While McCain may very well have been hesitant early on to discuss his faith, it doesn’t seem as if that is any longer the case – his appearance at Rick Warren’s faith forum is evidence of that.  In fact, his appearance at the forum was really the culmination of an effort that had been underway for several weeks. 

For example, a few weeks ago, David Brody posted an email distributed by McCain’s Americans of Faith team that was designed to “explain the shaping and content of John McCain's faith.”  Around the same time, the candidate had an essay in Time magazine on his faith and then, just last week, McCain sat down for an interview with the Chicago Tribune to discuss “how his faith was tested during his years as a prisoner of war.” 

And now Beliefnet is reporting that the campaign has been busy screening a video of a “faith interview" that McCain originally conducted with the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network for right-wing leaders:  

[S]ome of the nation's top conservative Christian activists have already seen a glimpse of McCain discussing the influence of his religion in his life in deeply personal terms, in the form of a Christian television interview with McCain that his campaign has been screening for religious audiences.

…

McCain's "faith interview" originally ran on "First to Know," a program on TBN, which describes itself as "the world's largest religious network and America's most watched faith channel." TBN does not offer a video or DVD versions of its programs for purchase, and the full video is not available online. A McCain aide says it will likely to be posted to a new evangelical section of the campaign's web site that is scheduled to launch in the next week or two.

A McCain aide says the campaign began screening the video for Christian audiences in Iowa in advance of this year's caucuses there, and that it had begun showing it to national evangelical leaders in late spring or early summer. "The exciting thing about the piece is that it wasn't generated after Obama started talking about faith--it was a piece that showed he was engaged [on faith issues] before the Iowa caucuses," the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "It will be used more often... we have plans for using it in a larger arena."

On top of that, as the Boston Globe reports, McCain has developed a tendency to start discussing every issue in terms to “Judeo-Christian values”:    

On a frozen winter evening at a Town Hall meeting in a school in the Manchester, N.H., suburbs, John McCain expressed surprise and irritation with an intelligence report downplaying the threat of Iran's nuclear program.

At the end of a long list of reasons to be suspicious of the Iranians, McCain declared: "And they sure don't share our Judeo-Christian values."

It seemed at the time to be an odd thing to say about a Muslim country. After all, even if there were no nuclear program, no oil, and no rabble-rousing president, Iran still wouldn't have Judeo-Christian values. And it's troubling to wonder if that alone would be a reason for suspicion.

Even President Bush has resisted framing the war on terrorism as a clash of religions; his inexpert use of the word "crusade" early in the conflict set off a wave of criticism and backtracking. He's never repeated it.

Perhaps McCain's comment was a similar mistake.

But on Saturday, at the nationally televised forum at evangelist Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California, McCain declared: "Our Judeo-Christian principles dictate that we do what we can to help people who are oppressed throughout the world."

And a review of online records by the Globe library shows that McCain uses the term "Judeo-Christian values" quite often, and in varying contexts. For example, last week in York, Pa., he praised small-town Americans by saying, "The Judeo-Christian values that they hold are the strength of America."

He has also repeatedly urged that illegal immigrants be treated in a manner "consistent with Judeo-Christian values." In February, he declared that job training was a Judeo-Christian imperative.

"We've got to educate and train these people," he said, referring to laid-off workers. "It is a Judeo-Christian values nation and it's an obligation we have and we are not doing it."

Last year, when he was criticized for telling the website Beliefnet that America was founded on Christian principles, McCain's defense was that he meant to say "Judeo-Christian." (When pressed, he said he believes a Muslim could serve as president.)

If McCain really is reluctant to discuss his faith, he sure is doing a good job of hiding it.

While Mike Huckabee’s supporters are busy threatening mutiny unless their candidate gets the nod as John McCain’s running mate and launching a seemingly endless parade of anti-Mitt Romney efforts, Huckabee himself as been a most loyal of soldiers, saying that his sole goal is to do whatever is most helpful to McCain and that “this isn't about me anymore. It's really about John McCain and winning.”

And if what McCain decides is most helpful to him would be to name him as his vice presidential candidate, then that would be just swell with Huckabee:

Mike Huckabee on Tuesday said he has not been approached by John McCain about being the U.S. presidential candidate's running mate. But he'd certainly consider the offer.

Huckabee said he didn't think anyone who has run for the U.S. presidency would turn down a chance to be vice president. The former Arkansas governor dropped out of the presidential race last March after McCain clinched the Republican nomination.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Huckabee said he has received "no indication" that McCain is considering him as a running mate. But if asked, Huckabee said it would be hard to resist.

"I don't think anybody that runs for president turns around and says no," he said.

Of course, just last week, Huckabee told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he had zero interest in serving in McCain’s administration because he can make more money and have more influence in the private sector: 

If McCain wins and offers you a position in his administration, would you consider it ?

No. No way.

Why ?

Why would I want to do that? What possible reason? I’m gonna have a good life out here in the private sector. Why would I go back to telling everybody in the world how much money I make and being limited to what I can make and living in a very expensive city and barely surviving to have some obscure Cabinet post and have some 20-year-old from the White House telling me what I’m gonna do ? Thanks but no thanks. I have better things to do with my life.

According to Huckabee, if someone running for president asks you to run with them, you say “I’d be honored,” but if that person actually becomes president and asks you to serve in their administration, you say “I have better things to do with my life.” 

After all the controversy provoked by the fact that John McCain was set to attend a fundraiser with Jack Abramoff crony Ralph Reed, it looks like the McCain campaign and Reed both wised up and decided not to be seen together at last night’s fundraiser in Atlanta:

John McCain raised more than $1.75 million for Republicans Monday at a fundraiser clouded by confusion over the role of a political operative connected to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The downtown event was promoted by Ralph Reed, a former head of the Christian Coalition. McCain's campaign said the event was organized by the Republican National Committee , not Reed, who was linked to the Abramoff scandal that McCain investigated in the Senate.

McCain didn't raise the issue during his 22-minute appearance. Instead, he thanked donors to the Republicans' umbrella campaign fund.

"Everybody in this room could be someplace else," the Arizona senator told the crowd of several hundred. "Everybody in this room could be donating to some other cause or to their own well-being. But I want to thank you."

Reed was not seen inside the hotel ballroom; a McCain campaign spokeswoman said he did not attend.

Back during the heyday of Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, the candidate was being hailed as a “new breed” of evangelical, one who cared about issues like poverty and the environment in addition to traditional right-wing opposition to gays and abortion.  As we have noted before, one of the key mis-perceptions about this so-called new movement is that its purported concern about issues beyond the standard Religious Right agenda does not mean that they are any more moderate on the core anti-gay, anti-abortion agenda that has driven the movement for the last several decades. 

Heading into his faith forum over the weekend, Rick Warren was poised to emerge as the poster boy for this “new evangelical” movement – as Time Magazine put it:

A shift away from "sin issues" — like abortion and gay marriage — is reflected in Warren's approach to his coming sit-downs with the candidates. He says he is more interested in questions that he feels are "uniting," such as "poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights," and still more in civics-class topics like the candidates' understanding of the role of the Constitution. There will be no "Christian religion test," Warren insists. "I want what's good for everybody, not just what's good for me. Who's the best for the nation right now?"

So that is the emerging narrative about Warren and the new movement he claims to represent.  Yet, in the same Time Magazine article it is reported that, back in 2004, Warren was poised to “become the next Jerry Falwell or James Dobson” but decided against it because he realized that he could have a bigger impact if he appeared to remain neutral:

During the 2004 presidential election, he seemed to toy with using his new influence to become the next Jerry Falwell or James Dobson. Although he did not officially endorse George W. Bush, the mega-author made no secret of his preference. Two weeks before the election, he sent an e-mail to the several hundred thousand pastors on his mailing list, enumerating "non-negotiable" issues for Christians to consider when casting their votes: abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, euthanasia and human cloning. Shortly after the election, two attendees of a Washington meeting of conservative religious and political heavyweights remember Warren's actively soliciting advice on how he might increase his clout with GOP politicians.

But upon exploring the role, Warren grew uncomfortable with it. "I have never been considered a part of the religious right, because I don't believe politics is the most effective way to change the world," he says now. "Although public service can be a noble profession, and I believe it is our responsibility to vote, I don't have much faith in government solutions, given the track record. It's why I am a pastor, not a politician. None of my values have changed from four years ago, but my agenda has definitely expanded."

This is a vital point: In 2004, he listed as "non-negotiable" issues including abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, euthanasia and human cloning.  Four years later, Warren says “none of my values have changed from four years ago, but my agenda has definitely expanded.”   The issues of gay marriage and abortion are not any less important to the “new evangelical” movement – in fact, they remain at the center of its agenda – it is just that these issues are getting glossed over by a media enthralled with the spectacle of conservative Christians who talk about things like poverty and climate change.   

Heading into the event, Warren was declaring that, since it is his job as a pastor to shepherd “Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives and moderates” he wasn’t going to ask “gotcha questions” but instead as “heartland questions” whatever that means.   In fact, all this moderate sounding talk was terrifying the Right – so much so that some of them had to organize a late-night conference call with reporters in order to offer up the right-wing perspective on the event.  But, as it turned out, Warren’s questions were so in-line with their own agenda that they could barely contain their glee – in fact, one pre-conference critic went so far as to issue a press release saying the event was even “better than I had prayed it would be.”     

And why was that?  Because, for all of Warren and the “new evangelical’s” talk of  issues beyond the standard right-wing agenda, when given the opportunity to press his issues with the candidates, Warren reverted to type, asking John McCain questions about same-sex marriage, abortion, judges, faith, evil, adoption, faith-based organizations, and religious persecution while asking next to nothing about poverty or climate change or any of the other issues that are said to make up this new movement’s expanded agenda. 

To see this dynamic at work, just take a look at this interview Warren did with Dan Gilgoff of Beliefnet in which he criticizes Barack Obama for his answer on when life begins and again asserts that, while he is trying to expand the agenda, the members of this new evangelical movement are “not leaving [the] pro-life [position]” and asserts that Democrats are “simply talking the lingo" and can't win them over if they don't have the correct "worldview"

When you asked Obama about when life begins, he punted, saying 'it's above my pay grade.' Should someone running for the highest office in the land have a clear answer to that, or is that kind of ambivalence acceptable?

No. I think he needed to be more specific on that. I happen to disagree with Barack on that. Like I said, he's a friend. But to me, I would not want to die and get before God one day and go, 'Oh, sorry, I didn't take the time to figure out' because if I was wrong then it had severe implications to my leadership if I had the ability to do something about it. He should either say, 'No scientifically, I do not believe it's a human being until X' or whatever it is or to say, 'Yes, I believe it is a human being at X point,' whether it's conception or anything else. But to just say 'I don't know' on the most divisive issue in America is not a clear enough answer for me.

That's why to say that evangelicals are a monolith is a myth, but the other thing is that you've been hearing a lot of the press talk about 'Well, evangelicals are changing, they're now interested in poverty and disease and illiteracy, and all the stuff I've been talking about for five years now. And I have been seeding that into the evangelical movement and it's getting picked up and a lot of people are talking about doing humanitarian efforts. But I really think it's wishful thinking on a lot of people who think they're going to drop the other issues. They're not leaving pro-life, I'm just trying to expand the agenda....

If an evangelical really believes that the Bible is literal--in other word in Psalm 139 God says 'I formed you in your mother's womb and before you were born I planned every day of your life,' if they believe that's literally true, then they can't just walk away from that. They can add other issues, but they can't walk away from the belief that at conception God planned that child and to abort it would be to short circuit the purpose.

Then it sounds like it would be unconscionable for an evangelical to vote for a pro-choice candidate like Obama.

Well, we're going to see what happens. All I can say is you'll see what happens. This is why there's a difference between simply talking the lingo... after the 2004 election the Democratic pundits were saying 'The Democrats lost in '04 because they didn't talk the language of faith.' And actually that's kind of, not paternalistic, but it's talking down. It's basically saying 'If you just get the right words, then they'll think you've got the lingo.' And just because a person can say 'God' and 'Jesus' and 'salvation' and whatever doesn't mean they have a worldview.

CBN’s David Brody accurately captured this dynamic in his preview of the forum last week.  In sitting down with Warren and asking him about criticism he had been receiving from the traditional right-wing leaders who were afraid that he was watering down their traditional agenda with talk of issues beyond gays and abortion, Warren responded that even though he was trying to “expand the agenda,” he had by no means left the traditional agenda behind:

“I’m going to ask them about abortion. I am going to ask them about the definition of marriage, but I’m also going to ask them about more than that … many people think because I’m trying to expand the agenda that I’ve left the prior agenda. I have not.”

Undoubtedly, there are benefits to the broadening the discussion regarding the role of faith in public life and fighting the traditional right-wing narrative that ,if you're a Christian, you can only care about issues like abortion and gay rights and have to vote Republican.  But, as Sarah Posner points out, Democratic effort to discuss religion on the Right’s terms end up running the risk of “setting a bar for future candidates -- that they prove their faith in Jesus.” 

For progressives who see choice and gay equality as core values, there is reason to be concerned about moves to enthusiastically court and embrace people such as Warren for whom those issues are “non-negotiable,” even if they do share a concern about a wider array of issues such as the environment and poverty.