Obama shows he can go right

OHIO | Barack, 'tagged as being on the left,' talks up God, guns and Reagan

ZANESVILLE, Ohio -- Taking a page from President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday he wants to expand White House efforts to steer dollars to religious groups, risking protests in his own party with his latest reach for Republican voters.

Obama contended he is merely stating long-held positions -- surprising to some, he said, after a primary campaign in which he was ''tagged as being on the left.''

In recent days, with the general election battle with Republican John McCain ahead, Obama has been sounding centrist themes with comments on guns, government surveillance and capital punishment. He's even quoted Ronald Reagan.

On Tuesday, touring a Presbyterian Church-based social services facility, Obama said he would get religious charities more involved in anti-poverty efforts if elected.

''We need an all-hands-on-deck approach,'' he said at Eastside Community Ministry.

The event was part of a series leading into the Fourth of July aimed at reassuring skeptical voters and shifting away from being stamped as part of the Democratic Party's most liberal wing.

Obama showed he was comfortable using the kind of language that is familiar in evangelical churches by calling his faith ''a personal commitment to Christ.'' He said that his time as a community organizer in Chicago, supported in part by a Catholic group, brought him to a deeper faith and also convinced him that faith is useless without works.

''While I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn't be fulfilling God's will unless I went out and did the Lord's work,'' he declared.

With 80 percent of Americans saying they identify themselves with some religion, Obama's campaign has struggled with the topic.

Comments critical of America by Obama's longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, caused a firestorm during the primaries and brought Obama's brand of faith under scrutiny because of Wright's adherence to black liberation theology. Obama also has battled false but persistent rumors that he is a Muslim.

Obama's high-profile embrace of a key theme of Bush's time in office -- the ''faith-based initiative'' -- is just the latest example of him trying to show his centrist side.

Last week, he quoted Reagan, saying ''we have to trust but verify'' after Bush lifted trade sanctions against North Korea.

Obama also supported new rules for the government's eavesdropping program, saying ''an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue,'' after opposing a similar bill last year.

AP