Jodi Enda’s profile of Barak Obama in this month’s issue of The American Prospect features this eye-catching quote from Obama:
“I do think that there’s a strain of the Democratic Party — it’s not uniform — that is somewhat patronizing towards people who go to church,” says Obama, who attends the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which is Congregationalist, and keeps a Bible in his car. “If you go to a black evangelical church, there may be traditions that secular humanists might be uncomfortable with — hoopin’ and hollerin’, wavin’ and dancin’,” he says, purposefully slipping into the vernacular. But, he says, the preachers and the parishioners are talking about the same things that Democratic leaders are: “They’re talking about health care and looking after our seniors and trying to salvage young men from going into the prison system. So there’s nothing alien about it. And yet sometimes, the Democratic Party, I think, just assumes that as long as people are in church that somehow we can’t reach them, that we have nothing in common. That’s simply not true and certainly hasn’t been true historically.”
This reminds me of the experience of a friend of mine who was being romanced to take a high level position in Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. His contact with the campaign wanted to meet on a Sunday. But my friend, who taught the Rite 13 class that my older son was in, explained that he had a commitment at church.
The response of his contact? “How quaint.”
Poor dumb Democrats.