FRESH AIR
Both John McCain and Barack Obama are courting the religious vote, but whose campaign will be more effective? Journalist Dan Gilgoff, the politics editor for Beliefnet.com, discusses the candidates’ tactics. Gilgoff is a former political correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and the author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War. His blog, the God-O-Meter, measures the rate of God-talk among the candidates. ALSO, Journalist Ryan Lizza says it’s no accident that the Democrats picked Denver as the site of their National Convention. Lizza discusses the strategy among party officials to make inroads in the West rather than the South. A Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, Lizza’s article, “The Code of the West: What Barack Obama can Learn from Bill Rittner,” appears in the Sept. 1, 2008 issue of the magazine.