Obama targets religious voters in America

By Ed Stoddard

DALLAS (Reuters) - Barack Obama is targeting voters, particularly young people, whose political decision-making is influenced by their religious beliefs as his presidential campaign seeks to shatter the myth of "Godless Democrats," a senior advisor on religious affairs said on Friday.

"The campaign is reaching out to a number of faith communities. It's not just targeting one or two. They have a staff of six or seven people doing various kinds of outreach, and if you were to add it all up, it would cover most American faiths," advisor Shaun Casey said.

"This is ... an expansive and inclusive religious outreach strategy," Casey told Reuters in a telephone interview from Nashville, Tennessee, where he is attending a conference of Christian scholars at Lipscomb University.

In the United States, many people regularly attend religious services and most Americans surveyed say they believe in God. A majority of the population is Christian.

To connect with religious voters, politicians often visit church congregations, pepper their speeches with Biblical references and discuss ways their faith has shaped their views and actions.

In recent election cycles, the Republican Party has galvanized white conservative evangelicals by playing up candidates' positions on social issues like abortion.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for the November presidential election, is regarded with suspicion by this base for a number of reasons, including his past criticism of conservative evangelical leaders.

Obama's support for abortion rights and his voting record in the U.S. Senate means the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will likely make few in-roads with conservative evangelicals who have begun to attack him.