Team Obama was depending on John McCain, with a reputation for opting out of discussions about faith and hot-button issues, looking like a fish at a water at last night’s Saddleback Civil Forum (here’s the video). Didn’t happen. Not by a long shot, One of the big surprises of the evening was that McCain shone.…

Tonight’s presidential candidate forum at Rick Warren’s Saddleback church has political pundits and in-the-pews religious voters wondering whether John McCain will finally open up about his personal faith, something his Democratic opponent has been doing for years. But some of the nation’s top conservative Christian activists have already seen a glimpse of McCain discussing the…

God-o-Meter caught up with someone very close to the Obama campaign and its faith outreach effort late this week and asked about the campaign’s thinking going into this Saturday’s Saddleback candidate forum. On background, here’s what it was told: The most important factor coming into Saddleback is Senator Obama’s level of comfort in forums like…

The Matthew 25 Network, a faithy political action committee founded by John Kerry’s former religious outreach director, will begin airing this pro-family Obama ad during Saturday night’s candidate forum with Rick Warren at Saddleback Church:The Matthew 25 Network describes the ad as entirely positive. And it is. But by broadcasting a squeaky clean family man…

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