McCain defends Christian outreach effort

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - Republican presidential candidate John McCain (news, bio, voting record) is defending his outreach to conservative Christians, arguing that his effort is not political pandering to win the GOP nomination.

McCain met privately Monday with religious broadcasters in Orlando, Fla., then answered questions about his appeal to conservatives in Vero Beach.

In the 2000 campaign, McCain angered the party's right by calling evangelist leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." Last spring, he spoke at Falwell's Liberty University although hard feelings still linger among some conservatives. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has said he won't support McCain.

"Nobody accused me of courting and pandering to the liberals when I went to the New School," McCain told the crowd, a reference to the New York City school. "What I have found out in my life, is that every time I have done something for political reasons and not the right reasons, I have paid a very heavy price for it — a big price."

The Arizona senator said he is trying to reach out to all elements of the party.

"I don't know which part of the party is going to be more influential or not," McCain said. "I've tried always in my political career to have a big tent party where a lot of people are welcome with differing views."

Conservatives are a critical voting bloc in the GOP primaries.

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition said after McCain's private meeting in Orlando that he helped repair damage with Christian conservatives.

"He recognized he cannot be president of the United States without reaching out to the evangelicals," Mahoney said. "There definitely is an uneasy relationship between McCain and people of faith, but he is reaching out and he is breaking down those walls. He helped himself in that room tremendously today."

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WASHINGTON (AP) — John Edwards' presidential campaign wants to make it clear that he does not consider Israel a threat to world peace.

A spokesman for the 2008 Democratic candidate issued a statement Tuesday denying such a report on Variety.com. Columnist Peter Bart reported that Edwards told a Hollywood fundraiser last month that the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities is perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace.

The report was circulating on the Internet, and the Edwards campaign wanted to reassure its pro-Israel supporters that is not his position.

"The January 19th Variety article is erroneous," said Edwards spokesman Jonathan Prince. "Senator Edwards did not say nor does he believe that the greatest short-term threat to world peace is the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. Senator Edwards said, as he has in the past, that Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon is one of the greatest short-term threats to world peace."

Bart said Variety stands by its report. The host of the Jan. 9 fundraiser, Adam Venit of the Endeavor talent agency, did not respond to a message seeking comment.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) will deliver the keynote address next month at the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee that commemorates the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march, organizers said Tuesday.

Obama is scheduled to speak at a March 4 service at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church, the site in Selma where marchers gathered in the historic protest that gave blacks across the South greater access to the ballot.

Rep. Artur Davis (news, bio, voting record), D-Ala., who district includes Selma, asked Obama to participate and plans to hold a fundraiser for the Illinois senator. Davis and Obama met while attending Harvard Law School.

The 1965 march helped spark passage of the Voting Rights Act, which allowed blacks to register across the South without the obstacles used by segregationists to limit their access to polling places.

Club-swinging troopers and deputies beat and turned back marchers at the Edmund Pettus bridge at Selma on March 7, 1965, an attack that became known as "Bloody Sunday" and helped galvanize national support for the voting rights movement. With a federal court order clearing the way, the march to Montgomery was completed later that month.

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Associated Press writers Ben Evans and Nedra Pickler in Washington contributed to this report.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070221/ap_on_el_pr/on_the2008_trail [link]