Leah Daughtry is on a mission to narrow the 'God gap' in politics
The Pentecostal minister, political planner and 'black chick from Brooklyn' is leading an effort to bring religious voters to the Democratic Party.
DENVER — Leah Daughtry is preparing to pray.
Hands clasped, elbows on the table, the Pentecostal minister leans toward the conference phone and speaks. "We've confirmed all the readings except the Buddhist person," she says.
Daughtry is planning the interfaith celebration of song and prayer that will kick off the Democratic National Convention. Still needed are a Muslim, a Jew, a Catholic and a white evangelical to close. Then another wrinkle: Staffers say the Buddhist may have to yield to a congresswoman angling for a spot onstage. "More women is never a bad thing," Daughtry allows, quickly moving on.
As a fifth-generation minister and veteran political planner, Daughtry seems perfectly suited for the administrative and ecumenical task posed by the gathering and its Noah's Ark of speakers. But her work goes far beyond that one event and even her duties as chief executive of the Denver convention, which opens Sunday.
Daughtry, who keeps an altar at home and devotes a predawn hour a day to prayer and Bible study, is on a mission to narrow the "God gap" between Democrats and Republicans by winning over religious voters who have flocked to the GOP over the last 20 years.
"There are millions of Americans across this country for whom faith is important," says Daughtry, who leads an unprecedented party effort targeting the devout. "And whether they vote on the basis of their faith, or whether they vote about issues that are somehow connected to their faith, we should be reaching out to them."
That doesn't mean changing the party's values, she adds, but moving past issues like abortion and showing that people of faith are not only welcome inside the Democratic Party but wanted.
"There are shades and gradations of what it means to be a Democrat," Daughtry says in her modestly appointed convention office. "We're not all Los Angeles, New York, Birkenstock-wearing Democrats."
Over the last generation, religious voters have become the bedrock of the GOP, with surveys showing the more a person attends services, the more likely he or she is to vote Republican. President Bush worked hard to woo the faithful, and in 2004 won the support of nearly 8 in 10 white evangelicals, accounting for a third of all his votes.
