Obama lays out national service and faith agenda

First it was patriotism, then came religion and yesterday Barack Obama called for young Americans to join an expanded Peace Corps that would address such issues as education and climate change at home and abroad.

Ahead of the 4 July national holiday Mr Obama has been on a "values" tour of middle America, wrapping his campaign in the stars and stripes as he seeks to counter Republican attempts to label him as too liberal.

In Republican-leaning Colorado Springs yesterday Mr Obama laid out his national service agenda in which students get their college tuition paid in return for committing to national service after university.

Earlier in the week he unexpectedly took a page from George Bush's political playbook by embracing his controversial "faith-based initiatives."

He told voters in the evangelical heartland of Ohio, that as president he would fund religious groups dealing with America's social problems provided they do not discriminate in whom they help.

President Bush's attempt to inject religion into foreign policy was heavily criticised. In Africa, for example, US funds were denied to groups that promoted the use of contraceptives to fight HIV aids. In the US the policy was frequently criticised for the way church groups pushed the Republican agenda.

Mr Obama's plan to fund faith-based groups could alienate those Democrats who the policy blurs the nation's constitutional separation of church and state.

In his move to the middle ground Mr Obama also annoyed liberals by criticising a Supreme Court decision that struck down a state death penalty law for child rapists and by supporting a reversal of a gun law ban in Washington DC.

The Obama's strategy of picking up conservative evangelical Christian voters has run into unexpectedly strong headwinds. This is especially true among the poor, white and working class voters of Scots-Irish descent who live in the Appalachian mountain region that stretches from Ohio to northern Mississippi and takes in parts of seven states.

Despite Mr Obama's public embrace of Christianity and his frequent overtures to the evangelical movement, many Evangelical voters in Appalachia remain sceptical of his sincerity.

Along with Internet claims that he is a secret Muslim, some evangelical Christians have put it about that Mr Obama may be the anti-Christ. Glenda Kinzer, a 41-year-old office manager from rural Ohio believes the end of the world is about to occur and with it the second coming of Christ.

"A lot of people are talking about how Obama fits the description" of the anti-Christ, she said referring to Biblical prophesies about a figure who will oppose Christ.

"I don't know that the anti-Christ will be from the US," she said yesterday, "I always thought he will be from the Middle East."

She intends to vote for the Republican John McCain, who is not even a regular churchgoer.

Ohio could be crucial in the November election. In the last two elections Mr Bush narrowly won the state with the help of crushing victories in the Appalachian part of Ohio. He defeated Al Gore by 15 per cent in 2000 and John Kerry by 24 per cent in 2004 in these parts while taking the state by less than three per centage points.

In Zanesville, Ohio, Mr Obama spoke at a Presbyterian Church that operates a food bank, provides clothes and other services.

"The challenges we face today — from saving our planet to ending poverty — are simply too big for government to solve alone," Mr. Obama said. "We need an all-hands-on-deck approach."

Calling the church project "the foundation of a new project of American renewal," he said, "that's the kind of effort I intend to lead as President of the United States."