Faith & Freedom: Who's Best for America's Future?

By David Brody

CBN News Chief Political Correspondent

Monday, June 23, 2014

WASHINGTON - Potential presidential candidates recently gathered in Washington, D.C., for the Faith and Freedom Coalition to talk about the country's future.

The annual event is an opportunity for politicians to make their case in front of a very important voting bloc in America: evangelical Christians.

One by one, they came to the stage, weaving a message of faith and freedom. Some of them were possible presidential candidates, like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Others, like the new House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, came preaching a message of conservative unity, despite the disputes over the direction of the party between the Tea Party and establishment conservatives.

Backstage, in an exclusive interview with CBN News, McCarthy played up the harmony theme.

"First and foremost I want to make sure that we're united. But we want to change the country. We want to change the direction," he said.

"I want to restructure government itself, these agencies have become too large. They need to be streamlined. There is too much duplication in it as well. We want to unshackle what has held us back for so long," McCarthy added.

Division Over Iraq

McCarthy and GOP leadership in both the House and Senate will also have to confront a divide on what to do in Iraq.

Some lawmakers, like Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., say decisive military action needs to be taken. Other Republicans aren't so sure they want to get involved in this fight. Rubio feels that's a mistake.

"They're wrong," he said. "We're going to have to deal with ISIS."

"The choice for us is not whether or not we're going to have to deal with them. The choice is do we deal with them now while they are still kind of scattered or do we deal with them in 10 years or five years when they own a piece of land and they have their own country and they use it to plan and carry out attacks that kill Americans here and around the world," Rubio explained.

Rubio will surely play up his hawkish views if he runs for president.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is also considering a run for president. He came touting his pro-life credentials, complete with a video before his introduction. He's a bit on the defensive after he recently said how Republicans might need to agree to disagree on social issues.

"I don't want to change our party. We need to be the pro-life party, the pro-traditional marriage party. But can we accept people, some people who don't agree with those issues in the party?" Rand challenged.

"I think that if we are not so strident to push people away, maybe having some people in the party that don't all agree with us, maybe we'll have some chance to persuade them. And we'll be a bigger party," he concluded.

Clinton-Obama Administration?

One item all these speakers seemed to agree upon was that religious liberty is under attack, whether through Obamacare here at home or abroad, where Christians are being persecuted for their faith.

They also agrees that they don't want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said that would be a nightmare.

"She will be Barack Obama's 3rd and 4th term, fundamentally transforming the United States of America away from the principles that the founders bled and died to give us," Bachmann warned.

It is those founder's principles that the Faith and Freedom crowd are fighting for.

The goal for them now is to mobilize other voters of faith to make a difference at the ballot box. The polling shows that when evangelical Christians show up, they can make the difference.