Troublesome

With the recent "discussion" (can you call it that?) at Saddleback with Pastor Rick Warren, the two Presidential nominees were given an opportunity to speak about their faith and related issues to a (most likely) pro-Republican crowd. Let me point out the absurdity of the entire scenario and how any pundit can come to a conclusion that Obama is "in trouble" because of this or how McCain is somehow a quality leader now. First, in recent years, the "religious" vote has become a significant one. Approximately 1/5 of those that vote are, in fact, religious and base their vote in some part on faith. The idea of a "faith vote" makes me cringe to begin with. Are we electing a theologian to office?
The recent interviews with Pastor Warren had me particularly frustrated. Senator Obama was already behind from the start. He was going against a crowd that largely either questioned his sincerity as a "Christian" and were looking for clarifying answers or simply didn't like the guy. Senator McCain on the other hand--whether in the silent tube or not--had a distinct advantage coming in. The crowd was, to begin, most likely at least leaning his way simply by party affiliation. Much of the night was related to touchy issues such as abortion and stem cell research. McCain was in campaign mode and shot off talking points like any political robot can and would do. The crowd seemed to eat-up most of it, except for a few points he made that went against their religious doctrines (i.e. stem cells). Obama, on the other hand, gave a more personal and nuanced interview to the crowd. I don't know that it went over well with them, especially on particular issues, but I don't think it hurt Obama overall as many pundits are making it out to be. If anything, it either came out a wash or McCain lost some "cred".
I wasn't expecting Obama to gain much from the experience, but I was expecting McCain to do better than he did. With that said, the fact that politics has started to become inter-meshed with the fringe of religious groups concerns me. Sooner or later, these groups will want the officials they elected to start implementing religious-based legislation into policy (Rick Santorum anybody?). I believe Americans will come to their senses at some point and this odd movement will deteriorate in strength. With that said, all of this leads me to believe that in spite of McCain's best efforts, he is too off-putting to win the general election and will not do so. Even after Obama's poor month, he still leads McCain and they haven't even gone into the meat of the election. Anything can happen before this November, but I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that Obama should STILL win.