MUSLIM SNUB 'OVERBLOWN'
One faith group that has complained that they have been overlooked by the Obama campaign is US Muslims.
In a widely publicised incident, two Muslim women wearing headscarves said they were barred from seats at an Obama rally so they would not be visible in the crowd behind the candidate. Obama last week apologised to the women.
The Obama campaign has struggled to dispel rumors that he is a Muslim, a faith that his Kenyan father was raised in.
"I think that the 'Muslim snub' is maybe a little overblown...He did knock that down (the rumours) and at the same time he said, not that there is anything wrong with being a Muslim," Casey said.
"That last phrase didn't get picked up in a lot of media accounts and I think some Islamic groups thought, my goodness, is he throwing us under the bus. But he has made it clear that he is not throwing the Muslim community under the bus."
Casey said Obama, who seems at ease talking about his own Christian faith, was aiming to break public perceptions of a "Republican monopoly" on faith.
"There is a caricature out there that the Republican Party has sold very effectively. It's that the Democratic Party is a secular party, it's the anti-God party," he said.
"This campaign is showing not that they want to transform the Democratic Party into the party of faithful people, but what they are acknowledging is the Democratic Party is already full of faithful people and they want to be inclusive."
He said that would include reaching out to "people of no faith and those of ambiguous faith".
The recently released results of a nationwide survey of close to 36,000 US adults last year by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 34 percent of self-described evangelicals identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party, while 50 per cent tilted Republicans.
Almost half of adult Catholics surveyed were in the Democratic camp. Among America's atheists and agnostics, over 60 per cent were Democratic.
