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Nine faith leaders have joined to urge senators Barack Obama and John McCain to present a ten-year plan to combat poverty at their nominating conventions. The interfaith coalition—led by Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA—sent letters to the two candidates asking them to propose a strategy in a prime-time speech to help the 37 million Americans living below the poverty line. “As people of faith, we believe it is immoral to ignore our nation’s most vulnerable populations,” the letter said.

Democratic senator Barack Obama admitted to a recent journalists’ conference in Chicago that correcting assertions and rumors that he is a Muslim has him cornered in a “no-win situation” in his race for the White House.

“I have repeatedly said I’m not a Muslim, but this whole strategy of suggesting that I am is indicative of an anti-Muslim strategy that we have to fight against,” Obama told the UNITY quadrennial convention for journalists of color.

Black public figures seem to fall into one of two categories: they either project a militant resistance to white racism and its pervasive legacy or a generous willingness to look past that tortured history for the sake of an interracial future. Choose your model: W. E. B. DuBois or Booker T. Washington? Al Sharpton or Colin Powell? Angela Davis or Oprah Winfrey? Dick Gregory or Bill Cosby?

Heather Rosema of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is precisely the kind of Christian voter that Senator Barack Obama covets.

Rosema, 41, chose George W. Bush in 2000, when she put greater emphasis on issues like abortion and gay marriage. This year, she intends to vote for Obama.

Rosema, a member of Roosevelt Park Community Christian Reformed Church, sees a true man of faith in the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. “He talks about God very easily,” said Rosema. “I think that I hear that from him. They seem to be a Christian family.”