{"id":13,"date":"2007-08-27T12:47:09","date_gmt":"2007-08-27T12:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2007\/08\/edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul.html"},"modified":"2007-08-27T12:47:09","modified_gmt":"2007-08-27T12:47:09","slug":"edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Edwards really courting cultural conservatives?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On its face, the central argument of today\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/28r9w8\"><em>Washington Post<\/em><\/a> story on Edwards makes some sense: \u201che is the sole Southern Democrat and cultural conservative in the Democratic presidential field, making him the only top-tier candidate in his party who can appeal easily to white men.\u201d And while Edwards is now a United Methodist, he was raised in the faith tradition that produced the only two Democratic presidents of the last 40 years: Southern Baptist. Still, God-o-Meter feels that the obvious trouble with playing up Edwards\u2019s religious or culture conservative appeal, as this article does, is that he is about as culturally conservative as Rudy Giuliani. Edwards <a href=\"http:\/\/johnedwards.com\/women\/Choice%201pg.pdf\">supports abortion rights<\/a>\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.johnedwards.com\/story\/2007\/4\/18\/12734\/6449\">decrying the recent Supreme Court decision<\/a> upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act\u2014and <a href=\"http:\/\/johnedwards.com\/issues\/lgbt\">backs gay civil unions and opposes \u201cDon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell.\u201d<\/a>. In the debates so far, he has more insistent than Clinton or Barack Obama that his faith has no place in shaping his policy stances (though he said otherwise during his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/story\/213\/story_21312_1.html\">Beliefnet interview<\/a>).  It may be true, as the <em>Washington Post <\/em>reports, that Edwards is attracting mostly white crowds in the New Hampshire countryside. But hey, the state is more than 95% white, so God-o-Meter warns against making too much of it.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On its face, the central argument of today\u2019s Washington Post story on Edwards makes some sense: \u201che is the sole Southern Democrat and cultural conservative in the Democratic presidential field, making him the only top-tier candidate in his party who can appeal easily to white men.\u201d And while Edwards is now a United Methodist, he&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-edwards"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Edwards really courting cultural conservatives? - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Edwards really courting cultural conservatives? - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On its face, the central argument of today\u2019s Washington Post story on Edwards makes some sense: \u201che is the sole Southern Democrat and cultural conservative in the Democratic presidential field, making him the only top-tier candidate in his party who can appeal easily to white men.\u201d And while Edwards is now a United Methodist, he&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-08-27T12:47:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Edwards really courting cultural conservatives? - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Edwards really courting cultural conservatives? - God-O-Meter","og_description":"On its face, the central argument of today\u2019s Washington Post story on Edwards makes some sense: \u201che is the sole Southern Democrat and cultural conservative in the Democratic presidential field, making him the only top-tier candidate in his party who can appeal easily to white men.\u201d And while Edwards is now a United Methodist, he&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2007-08-27T12:47:09+00:00","author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/edwards-is-reaching-out-to-cul.html","name":"Is Edwards really courting cultural conservatives? 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