What could he have in common with “conservative” Christian leaders?

I returned from the meeting very concerned. Here is a liberal—Obama--reaching out to the Christian community at a time the conservative--Sen. John McCain--seems to be distancing himself from the so-called “Christian Right.” I think McCain has a lot of work to do to get the support of the Christian community. Obama seemed to have the support of at least half of the 43 leaders who attended the Chicago meeting. And in my opinion, he “made points” with the rest. The tone of the meeting was respectful and generally upbeat.

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Sen. Obama personally took time to meet each person and shake their hand. He’s not as large a man as I envisioned from seeing him on television. But, he’s warm and personable --- obviously one of the reasons why people like him. He seemed to remember names well. He hugged a couple of the participants—mostly the black preachers who attended. He also seemed to be on top of the issues; and he’s obviously very intelligent.

The questions were mostly “softball” questions in my opinion. I was concerned after three or four general questions that we wouldn’t ask the most important questions. So I raised my hand and he called on me. I said, “Senator, I want to ask a question I'm sure you are expecting regarding your position on abortion. I represent a segment of the church where nearly everyone considers the issue of supporting life to be the most important issue and where nearly everyone would be opposed to abortion. I want to ask what your stand on abortion is and if you believe what I think you believe, how you justify that with your Christian faith and why you think we should vote for you.”

Since his response was “off-the-record,” I can say that the time he took to answer was probably 15 minutes. He came across as thoughtful and much more of a “centrist” than what I would have expected. He did not appear to be the crazy leftist that is being supported by George Soros and his radical leftist friends. Sen. Obama looked me in the eye as he answered my question, almost as if it were a one-on-one interview. I had already read the chapter on “faith” in his book the “Audacity of Hope.” If you want to know how he answered the question, read that chapter. In other words, other than his demeanor and obvious attempt to win over the Christian leaders in the room, he didn’t say anything new.

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You may know that I supported Gov. Mike Huckabee during the primaries. Like Huckabee, Obama was winsome and good with giving extemporaneous answers to difficult questions. I had hoped that Huckabee would have gotten the nomination. Huckabee was never able to raise the kind of money that Obama has raised. But he did get a lot of the grassroots excited as Obama has obviously done.

Sen. John McCain was my second choice for the nomination. He is a true American hero. He has served well in the Senate for many years. He is strong for our national defense at a time we are in a war with Islamic terrorists. And, he is strong for Israel. He also has the right stands, in my opinion, on abortion and the sanctity of marriage.

Unlike Huckabee, he is not comfortable talking about his faith. It’s well known he has a temper and he has been known to swear in public. The fact he divorced the wife who stuck by him and raised his children while he was in a prisoner of war camp to marry a much younger woman, doesn’t sit well with those of us who believe marriage is for life.

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I urge Sen. John McCain to have a similar meeting—or several such meetings. There is a lot of latent support for him in the Christian community. But after being “still armed” by the McCain camp, while being wooed by the Obama camp, this may be the first time a majority of evangelicals will vote for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter, who talked of being “born again” and got many evangelical votes in 1976.

If enacted, the Obama and McCain tax plans would have radically different effects on the distribution of tax burdens in the United States. The Obama tax plan would make the tax system significantly more progressive by providing large tax breaks to those at the bottom of the income scale and raising taxes significantly on upper-income earners. The McCain tax plan would make the tax system more regressive, even compared with a system in which the 2001–06 tax cuts are made permanent.

The CBN report noted that the "Obama campaign understands that the issue of abortion is a problem for some voters of faith." But the report said they view the "Joshua" program plans as a way to broaden the discussion on values, and cite issues of poverty, climate change, the war on terror and others on which evangelicals may agree with Obama.

HSLDA chief Michael Farris told Roll Call that the outreach, if using the Joshua moniker, "is an improper invasion of our trademark and we've retained legal counsel to notify the Obama campaign to stop this."

The HSLDA's website offers, "Generation Joshua is designed for Christian youth between the ages of 11 and 19 who want to become a force in the civil and political arenas."

"It's impossible to miss this, as web savvy as they are," Farris, who also wrote a 2005 book called, "The Joshua Generation: Restoring the Heritage of Christian Leadership," told Roll Call.

The government lists "Generation Joshua" as being registered on Feb. 28, 2006, to the Home School Legal Defense Association, a nonprofit based in Purcellville, Va.

In a statement on the issue, Smith said the HSLDA registrations are a matter of public record.

"HSLDA has used these two trademarks continuously since 2003 for various services related to engaging young people, particularly within the Christian community, in civic involvement," the statement said.

He’s right, and it’s a sad statement on the paranoia and bigotry of many in the black community, even at this late date, that only a black man could make it without fear of provoking accusations of racism when he did. Kudos to him for doing so. Yes, I really mean it.

How he reconciles this with his own statist views — views which birthed the welfare-state programs that have done more than anything else over the years to handicap black families, if not destroy them outright — is another puzzle altogether. But it doesn’t much lessen the unexpected pleasure of hearing him argue for responsibility over victimhood, and I think he deserves at least a respectful nod of appreciation and encouragement for it.

The conservative Christian group provided The Associated Press with an advance copy of the pre-taped radio segment, which runs 18 minutes and highlights excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. Obama mentions Dobson in the speech.

"Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?" Obama said. "Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?" referring to the civil rights leader.

Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."

"Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," Obama said.

'Deliberately distorting'

Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament.

"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology," Dobson said.

"... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

A more recent study in the International Journal of Health Services found that in 2003, administration costs in the US health care system ate up about $400bn, or about 25% of total health care spending.
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By comparison, national health care systems incur administrative costs of a few percent of total health expenditures: according to the NEJM study Canada's national health insurance system spends just 1.3% on overhead, and the US's Medicare and Medicaid programs have administrative costs of between 2-5%.

It therefore makes sense for them to devote substantial resources to the task of trying to avoid paying claims that are brought to them. One example of this effect is how insurance companies go over claims with a fine-toothed comb to try to deny them whenever possible. A national government-run insurance plan would have no such incentive, since there would be no one to try to shift the burden to.