It is worth considering why the two presumptive presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, continue to be besieged with troubling relationships involving wacky preachers.

Over the last decade or so, as the power of the evangelical vote to swing elections made itsself felt, a phenomonen has emerged termed “the God strategy” by author David Domke, a professor of communications at the University of Washington.

Politicians have eagerly courted pastors — of megachurches in particular — in hopes of boosting their support by the voters who attend their churches, watch or listen to their widely broadcast service or who otherwise take these preachers’ words as gospel.

Trouble is, to attract attention in today’s cluttered media environment from a flock with increasingly short attention spans, the mega-preachers have to be flamboyant in every way — including in the positions they take in their sermons and the language they use to deliver them.

Politicians, on the other hand, go out of their way not to ruffle the feathers of any possible voter and tend to couch every utterance in politically correct platitudes.

Nevertheless, besides the politicians’ quest for an endorsement and the preachers’ desire for a wider audience and political clout, we suspect they have more in common than meets the eye — most especially big egos that require the limelight constantly, and mouths that don’t stop running even when their feet are in them.

Take Obama: His pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at first was accused of certain controversial stances that have been labeled black nationalism and anti-Americanism.

After Obama and Wright both tried to claim that Wright’s views were taken out of context, Wright grabbed back the national spotlight with subsequent recorded interviews in which he revealed that, in fact, his views were even more extreme that previously charged.

Suffice it to say, Obama felt he had no choice but to, as they say, throw Wright under the bus to retain any serious hopes of ascending to the presidency.

Still, Obama continues to be dogged by opponents and critics who perhaps never will allow him to live down the fact that he sat through innumerable sermons by Wright, had his children baptized by him and even was married to his wife Michelle by him. Before the campaign furor, they were considered close.

In the meantime, just in case McCain thought he would enjoy a free ride as his rival Obama got hammered by critics, he was in for his own pounding.

McCain has been dogged by endorsements by two well-known evangelical pastors with controversial, if not repugnant, views on other religions.

First, the Rev. Rod Parsley of Ohio, whom McCain had described as his “spiritual guide” several months ago, was reported to have called Islam “an anti-Christ religion” and the prophet Mohammed “the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil.”

When these remarks became public, McCain pragmatically disowned Parsley’s endorsement.
Then McCain had to reject another endorsement he earlier had strenuously courted, from the Rev. John Hagee of Texas.

Hagee has been criticized for being anti-Catholic, but, like Obama with Wright, McCain did not reject his endorsement until Hagee went too far — giving a sermon portraying Hitler as a tool God used to deliver Jews to the promised land.

The lesson we hope politicians learn from these fiascos is that mixing politics and religion makes for a toxic — and all too flammable — brew. Yet again, the wisdom of our Founding Fathers is proven in their efforts to build a wall of separation between church and state.