ubercat wrote:[on topic]
He can't win without a sizable % of the evangelical vote.
[/on topic]
I think that it is more important for him to appeal to the larger community of "faiths", as more and more religious people recognise themselves as part of a larger demographic and want ecumenism in politics and journalists more than they would like it in their places of worship. This is way that British and European politicians secure the religious vote.
The fundamentalist kernel will no vote for Obama anyway, but the left leaners are ecumenist almost by definition. It is also a sad fact that the average religious voter will not be well versed regarding policy issues are decided on religious ground. They will know how they should vote regarding abortion, Islam, creationism, legal rights for scientology, religious school grants, etc. but they won't necessarily know the specifics; therefore they fall into a "community of faiths" catch-all withotu realising they might be voting for someone contrary to their issues.
A good UK example would be the very strong support for Smith and Blair in areas of Wales dominated by Chapel and Scotland by Baptists/Post-Puritans: they voted from the security of those addressed as a diverse, community of faiths but legislation undercut several of their key issues and a lot of traditions and community/identities. It might seem smallfry compared to the states, but I think it is the spiral of silence at work whatever the scale of the vote.
Pastor issues aside (and I don't think they are that relevant to Obama's supporters), Obama doesn't even have to make his ecumenist tendencies explicit to get the message across and I think voters will be very easily convinced of his sincerity regarding spiritual issues.