Charmaine Speaks To The Pew Forum on Religion and Politics

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.

Religion and Politics Charmaine was invited to give a presentation to The Pew Forum on Religion and Politics last week. She gave an analysis of the mid-term election from her perch as Vice President for Communications at the Family Research Council. She said,

“…In September we had a big event called the Washington Briefing…we moved it to the fall and made it a larger event than it’s been in the past. We had nearly 2,000 attendees, over 200 media outlets, and quite a few prospective presidential candidates coming to talk to values voters. We called it the Values Voters Summit. It was our way of kicking off the election season and saying,

This is an important election. Values voters need to be paying attention, and these are the issues they need to be looking at, and here are some of the potential leaders.”

Alert Readers will remember that a number of speakers at the FRC Summit have presidential ambitions and that,

A lot of people paid attention to the fact that Mitt Romney came and spoke and was warmly received, because they had been saying he wouldn’t be accepted by the values voters.

The Pew Forum

Charmaine’s photos courtesy The Pew Forum

Charmaine Yoest

Read the event transcript Religious Voters and the Midterm Elections.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Vince at WorldViews provided the link to Pew at How will the faithful vote in 2008?

Management Training Tip: Big Events can product a Peak Experience for your team.

Politics in public is a contact sport.

Facing South has a liberal perspective at How faith is impacting elections.

More at the jump.

Event Transcript

Religious Voters and the Midterm Elections

Monday, November 13, 2006

Washington, D.C.

Despite predictions from some pundits that sex scandals involving former Rep. Mark Foley and former National Association of Evangelicals President Ted Haggard would make evangelicals disillusioned with the GOP, exit polls showed evangelicals supported Republicans at levels similar to previous elections. Exit polls showed Democrats also did well among their core constituencies; compared to 2002, they received increased support from Jews, the religiously unaffiliated, infrequent churchgoers and those who never attend religious services.

The Pew Forum invited opposing political operatives to discuss the midterm election’s religious dynamics, analyzing what strategies worked, what strategies didn’t and what they expect to happen as both parties gear up for the 2008 presidential race.

Speakers:

Eric Sapp, Senior Partner, Common Good Strategies, LLC

Charmaine Yoest, Vice President for Communications, Family Research Council

Moderator:

John Green, Senior Fellow in Religion and American Politics, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life