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Bush Rewarded by Black Pastors' Faith
MILWAUKEE — Bishop Sedgwick Daniels, one of this city's most prominent black pastors, supported Democrats in past presidential elections, backing Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

This fall, however, the bishop's broad face appeared on Republican Party fliers in the battleground state of Wisconsin, endorsing President Bush as the candidate who "shares our views."

What changed?

After Bush's contested 2000 victory, Daniels felt the pull of a most powerful worldly force: a call from the White House. He conferred with top administration officials and had a visit in 2002 from the president himself. His church later received $1.5 million in federal funds through Bush's initiative to support faith-based social services.

Daniels' political conversion, and similar transformations by black pastors across the nation, form a little-known chapter in the playbook of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign — and may mark the beginning of a political realignment long sought by senior White House advisor Karl Rove and other GOP strategists....

...In the crucial state of Ohio, where the faith-based program was promoted last fall at rallies and ministerial meetings, a rise in black support for Bush created the cushion he needed to win the presidential race without a legal challenge in that state...

...A longtime observer and critic of federal faith-based efforts, Robert Wineburg, a professor of social work at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, says the Bush initiative is as crassly political as any program he has seen.

"Look at where they planned their large-scale meetings," said Wineburg, who has written books on the politics of faith and social service and has worked as a consultant to religious charities. "A grant-writing workshop in St. Louis in September before Missouri was a lock, in Miami in October before Florida was sealed. I wouldn't call it honest technical assistance based on communities that needed that assistance most at that specific time. I'd call it honest American, or maybe old-style Chicago, politics."...