Obama has been having a little email chat with David Brody of Pat Robertson’s CBN. It’s nothing new that the he is talking about the intersection between faith and politics. He’s very skilled at talking about the role of his faith in his public life. Mark Kleiman (Reality-Based Community) is especially in awe of Obama’s tone as he confidently fields Brody’s questions.

It does raise an eye that Obama would take the chance of giving CBN an opportunity to use the moment to take a knock at him. What’s in it for him?

Based on his experience with the Rick Warren/Saddleback controversy in December, he clearly knows that his outreach will not sway many people in the fundamentalist community. If this conversation has any cynical electoral implications, perhaps it will help him in Southern and Midwestern primaries.

Certainly, his words sound to me like they would resonate with main line protestants that I grew up with. But they’re a rapidly declining population. I couldn’t guess how Obama’s words are perceived in the ears and hearts of evengelical moderates. I do have a few hunches about possible outcomes of these conversations with prominent evangelicals:

1. The Christian right are not going to be terribly cheerful about any of their options from the Republican side.
2. Some spokespersons from the Christian right will not swing as hard at candidate Obama as they will at the other Democratic candidates, largely because he gives them access and is deft at talking about issues within their own rhetorical framework.
3. If he is elected President, these conversations might enable him to govern with a broader national consensus. I think there are plenty of people who won’t vote for him, but who will grudgingly concede that he seems like a very decent man.