New Ads Use Book of Isaiah and Local Pastors to Sell Healthcare Reform

June 30, 2009 10:55 AM ET | Dan Gilgoff | Permanent Link | Print

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

A week after a left-leaning faith group enlisted a Franciscan sister to sell the climate bill on the Indiana radio waves, another progressive faith outfit is using the Bible's Book of Isaiah to sell healthcare reform in other red states.

What's novel about the new ad—which will air in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, and North Carolina over Congress's Fourth of July break—is not that it uses Christian radio and messaging to push a mostly Democratic cause. In the past few years, that's become standard practice for the Dems.

What's novel is that the ad enlists local pastors in each market where it's airing to make a case for healthcare reform. It's the second such ad to do so for a liberal cause.

Harnessing the power of clergy's local circles of influence is a technique that the Bush campaign pioneered in 2004, to great effect. Now, the Democrats and their allies are following suit, even as the GOP and its friends appear to be doing less of that messaging.

Here's the script of the ad (this one's the North Carolina version) to be released later today:

It's a vision first proclaimed by Isaiah: No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime.

This is Rev. Joe Harvard from Durham, and we've got work to do.

In North Carolina, people are being denied the care they need because of their age or an illness they had years ago. Or getting sick because they can't afford preventive care.

This is not who we are as a nation. America can do better.

The challenge is great, but God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love. And our love must be a thing of action.

This Independence Day, join thousands of people of faith in asking Senators Hagan and Burr to rise to the challenge by supporting reform that makes quality health care choices affordable for all families.

Please add your voice, and learn more at www.coverallfamilies.org. Paid for by Faithful America.