On a Thursday morning in early September, a handful of Louisiana pastors gathered at a Baptist church on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain to meet with Chad Connelly, the GOPâ??s first-ever director of faith engagement. The former head of the South Carolina Republican Party, Connelly was tapped by the Republican National Committee (RNC) in June of last year to be the partyâ??s new religious ambassador. His job is to travel the country with a sales pitch, of sorts. â??Iâ??m there to tell them that voting isnâ??t political, itâ??s spiritual,â? he says. â??I ask them to preach biblical values from the pulpit so the people in the pews can go vote those values.â?
In Louisiana, where I reached him by phone, Connelly was juggling both a long and a short game. His immediate task was to urge pastors to shepherd their flocks to the polls in the upcoming midterm election, when incumbent Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu faces a challenge from a Republican congressman, Bill Cassidy. Over the past few months, Connelly says heâ??s brought the GOP Faith initiativeâ??s message to 29 states, but competitive Senate races merit extra attention; the September trip was Connellyâ??s sixth visit to the Pelican State. But heâ??s also sowing seeds for the 2016 presidential election by assuring religious leadersâ??primarily evangelical Christian pastorsâ??that the GOP isnâ??t taking their support for granted.
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