Yesterday, I raised the question of why Democrats - really Obama's campaign and Faith in Public Life - felt obliged to attend the forum hosted by Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church.

The answer to that question turns out to be pretty simple: Rick Warren reaches millions and millions of people. He asks, the candidates respond. Nobody wants to piss off Rick Warren. Fine.

Instead of using a rhetorical question to make my point, however, let's lay it out in positive terms.

1. Obama's attendance at Saddleback is not a problem in itself. I have no idea why Faith in Public Life would want to get involved in the program, but perhaps they'll give me a perfectly reasonable justification.
2. Religious outreach to Evangelicals is not a problem. As Jesse Lava points out in the comments, it's analogous to the 50-State strategy: you work to extend your capabilities even in areas (or demographics) where the chances for an outright win aren't great to keep pressure on the other team and on the off chance that something breaks your way. Over the long run, it's a sensible strategy.
3. Here's where the problem comes in: the way Evangelical outreach gets sold is ZOMG, there's a huge field awaiting the harvest if only Democrats will do X, Y, or Z!! But the way it gets defended is: it's a long-term project that will pay off over time, so be patient. Well, which is it?

   The math seems to indicate that as a short-term strategy, it's not working very well. Other than Evangelicals moving away from a Republican partisan ID, there's not much solid evidence to say that they're prepared to vote Democratic in 2008. There's plenty of anecdotal stories coming out about Evangelicals flirting with Obama, but many of those stories originate with the Jim Wallis crowd, who obviously have a vested interest here, and again, the numbers just aren't there.

   And if this is a long-haul strategy, boy, we sure seem to be putting a lot of eggs in one basket, don't we? Obama has done a few events with mainline Protestants, most notably speaking at the UCC General Synod last year, but I can't remember the last time he spoke to a primarily Catholic audience, and lately his religious outreach seems laser-guided on Evangelicals.

4. So it's not so much that I have a problem with the Evangelical strategy per se, but I do have to wonder whether it's going to pay the dividends promised. That's a particular concern because more and more it seems to be pushing out any other outreach. Jesse suggests that focusing on Evangelicals is worthwhile because they're the most responsive to religious messages, which very well might be the case. But my question is whether it's worth it to try to draw in a few Evangelicals with a religious message when an economic message, or one based on the war, could bring in many more Catholics and mainline Protestants?

   Put differently, the Evangelical strategy seems to be predicated on this being a swing election. But it's not. This appears to be a base election, with the Democratic base swelling.

To sum up, spending so much time on Evangelicals might be a good strategy under the right circumstances. But it's probably not worthwhile to pursue them to the exclusion of other religious groups - not to mention the secular folks - and nobody so far has been able to demonstrate concretely why these are the right circumstances and what the returns are likely to be.

I'm listening, I really am. But I'd like to hear more than "boy, there's a lot of Evangelicals out there." There's lots of other folks, too. Show me the math, somebody. Anybody?