Compared to the 2004 Democratic Convention, the 2008 gathering is a veritable religious revival meeting. At the last convention, people of faith were treated as a worthwhile little interest group, roughly on the same level as mohair farmers. What a difference four years make. By my count, there are at least nine different faith-related events.…

I’ve spent the last few days scrutinizing the political buttons being sold on the streets of Denver and have noticed something very odd: there are almost no anti-McCain buttons. It’s almost all pro-Obama and pro-Clinton buttons. Today, I finally found one with a picture of McCain and the word, “NOPE.” Not exactly scathing. The 2004…

George W. Bush was always brilliant at dropping in religious references in ways that seemed genuine, appropriate and not forced. Joe Biden had a different, but equally effective style. This was not language of poetic evangelicalism, but colloquial faith talk of working class Catholics: “How in God’s name” “God sends no cross that you cannot…

To me, whether this convention ends up helping Obama will depend on whether people watch cable news or broadcast news. Why? Because if you watch the full convention straight through, you think, “wow, most of these Democrats are boring.” But if you watch the broadcast channels, which only show the top speakers — Michelle Obama,…

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