David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network reports:
EXCLUSIVE: Obama Campaign will Launch 'Joshua Generation Project'
June 6, 2008
The Brody File has learned that in the next two weeks Barack Obama's campaign will unveil a major new program to attract younger Evangelicals and Catholics to their campaign.
It's called the "Joshua Generation Project." The name is based on the biblical story of how Joshua's generation led the Israelites into the Promised Land.
http://www.cbn.com/...
A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File the following:
"The Joshua Generation project will be the Obama campaign's outreach to young people of faith. There's unprecedented energy and excitement for Obama among young evangelicals and Catholics. The Joshua Generation project will tap into that excitement and provide young people of faith opportunities to stand up for their values and move the campaign forward."
For a long time, evangelicals and born-again Christians have been considered to be part of the republican base. But that is changing.
A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File the following:
"The Joshua Generation project will be the Obama campaign's outreach to young people of faith. There's unprecedented energy and excitement for Obama among young evangelicals and Catholics. The Joshua Generation project will tap into that excitement and provide young people of faith opportunities to stand up for their values and move the campaign forward."
Many young evangelicals are interested in topics like global poverty, ending the war, housing the homeless, and climate change.
Barack has spoken about the young people he has described as the Joshua Generation:
Obama spoke about the "Joshua Generation" in a speech he gave in Selma, Alabama in March of 2007. Read part of that speech below. It will give you an good idea of where the Obama campaign is heading with this effort:
Obama: "I'm here because somebody marched. I'm here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I thank the Moses generation; but we've got to remember, now, that Joshua still had a job to do. As great as Moses was, despite all that he did, leading a people out of bondage, he didn't cross over the river to see the Promised Land. God told him your job is done. You'll see it. You'll be at the mountain top and you can see what I've promised. What I've promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. You will see that I've fulfilled that promise but you won't go there. We're going to leave it to the Joshua generation to make sure it happens. There are still battles that need to be fought; some rivers that need to be crossed. Like Moses, the task was passed on to those who might not have been as deserving, might not have been as courageous, find themselves in front of the risks that their parents and grandparents and great grandparents had taken. That doesn't mean that they don't still have a burden to shoulder, that they don't have some responsibilities. The previous generation, the Moses generation, pointed the way. They took us 90% of the way there. We still got that 10% in order to cross over to the other side. So the question, I guess, that I have today is what's called of us in this Joshua generation? What do we do in order to fulfill that legacy; to fulfill the obligations and the debt that we owe to those who allowed us to be here today?"
http://www.barackobama.com/...
This is an interesting strategy, and could cause problems for the McCain campaign. Though many young evangelicals are not pro-choice and may have problems with issues like gay marriage, many are committed to concepts of social justice. Many are white, but there are increasingly larger numbers of Latinos and African-Americans who are part of the movement.