Campaign 2008From The Trail
NBC/National Journal embed reporters file regular dispatches on their experiences from the trail.

Previously in this series:
• For McCain, Change Begins With A 'No' (08/12/08)
• On Hawaii Trip, Obama Is An Island (08/11/08)

Read The Entire Series

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Fresh off his week-long Hawaiian vacation, Barack Obama took part in a forum on faith and politics on Saturday night in front of a crowd that has traditionally leaned Republican: evangelical voters.

Obama and rival John McCain joined influential pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren for a televised forum at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. Obama was received warmly by the diverse audience, and some self-identified McCain supporters at the forum said in informal conversations that Obama did better than they expected.

Still, it was clear the Democrat might still be a tough sell to conservative Christians.

Evangelical Christians voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush in 2004 and 2000, and last month's NBC/Wall Street Journal survey [PDF] showed McCain leading Obama among evangelical voters by a margin of 64 percent to 24 percent. But the Obama campaign, in a pamphlet for journalists and other attendees Saturday, played up another survey by the Barna Group, a Christian research and consulting firm, that showed the Illinois senator besting McCain among Christians overall.

The forum, though not a debate, seemed to shed some light on what audiences might expect to hear from Obama in upcoming debates. He gave careful and lengthy answers throughout the discussion, making an effort to explain not just his views on everything from stem cell research to whether evil exists to how to combat human trafficking but why he held them.

One response in particular has drawn some heat since the forum. When Warren, author of A Purpose Driven Life, asked at what point a baby gets human rights, Obama, who supports abortion rights, did not provide a time frame and instead focused on finding common ground, which he defined as working to reduce the number of abortions, a goal he said he had inserted into the Democratic Party platform.

"Whether you're looking at it from a theoretical or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade," Obama began. "If you believe that life begins at conception and you are consistent in that belief, then I can't argue with you, because that is a core issue of faith for you. What I can do is say, are there ways that we can work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies?"

Throughout the evening, however, the crowd laughed at Obama's quips and frequently interrupted with applause, clapping when Obama defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman but also when he said he did not support a constitutional amendment codifying that belief.

On the campaign trail, the senator has spoken openly about his religion, writing about finding his faith as a young man and about working with local churches as a community organizer in Chicago, an effort that may have helped him appeal to some religious voters, especially younger ones. His director of religious outreach, Joshua Dubois, is a 26-year-old associate pastor at a Massachusetts Pentecostal church.

Recently, Obama has issued concrete policy proposals to try to court people of faith.

At an event in Ohio in July, the senator announced that he would create a new Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives that would provide federal money to help these organizations provide social services, though such groups would not be allowed to use that money to proselytize, could not discriminate on the basis of faith and could only use taxpayer dollars on secular programs and initiatives.

Near the end of his hour-long chat with Warren on Saturday, Obama sounded a tone familiar from his campaign and his previous statements on religion.

"I believe that things will work out and we will get the president that we need, but you want, though, just to make sure that people have good information, that they're not just consuming negative ads or the kind of nasty tit-for-tat that has become so common in politics.

"I want people to know me well and I want people -- I'm sure John McCain feels the same way, and that if we are both known and people know where we stand on issues, you know, I trust that the American people are going to make a good decision and we're going to be able to solve the big problems that we face."

CORRECTION: An older version of this report was posted earlier. This is the updated version.