In an effort to break the monopoly Republicans are holding on Spiritual Politics, I went searching to see if any Democrats have extended a hand to religious voters. Obama did, and he too, had his own “Faith in America” speech in June ’06. It had some remarkable similarities to Mitt’s including;

“I informed Mr. [Alan] Keyes that I was running to be the United States Senator from Illinois not the Minister from Illinois.”

and

“I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people’s lives and in the lives of the American people… We need to understand that Americans are a religious people.”

Or a great point Mitt loved:

“Folks tend to forget, that during our founding, it wasn’t the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment,” but “persecuted minorities” such as Baptists “who didn’t want the established churches to impose their views.”

Oh, and be sure to check out E.J. Dionne’s quotation about the speech