This was my first Republican debate that I watched. Personally, I believe Congressman Ron Paul was the shining example of inclusive Republican politics. However, I’m a Democrat and my vote will be cast for Sen. Barack Obama of my home church Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and my U.S. Senator as well. I’d personally like to ponder the motivations of Retired Brigadier General Keith Kerr and his associations with the Democratic Party; if it is true, then he had no reason and was out of line to question Republican candidates. It should be to no surprise that he didn’t feel that his question concerning gays in the military had been answered.
Even though, he had what I feel was a valid question and begs the question as to whether non-white persons should have been allowed to join the Armed Forces (namely African Americans) based on the issues of “unit cohesion” which were echoed by Mitt Romney totally dodging Anderson Cooper’s question, but alas, that’s typical Mitt.
Campaign trail rancor carries into GOP debate
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (CNN) — The acrimony from the Republican campaign trail carried over quickly into the CNN/YouTube GOP presidential debate Wednesday.
The debate marked the first time the candidates had faced off on the same stage in over a month.
With five weeks to go until the first contest of the 2008 nominating season, the Republican candidates engaged in a free-for-all, trying to differentiate their views on immigration, the Iraq war, abortion, gun control and even whether they believed every word in the Bible was true.
Unlike previous debates in which the candidates focused most of their attacks on Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, Wednesday night’s attacks were launched at each other.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney traded jabs over illegal immigration, something they have been arguing about on the trail for the past month.
Romney attacked Giuliani’s record, saying that as mayor, he promoted illegal immigration. And Giuliani shot back, accusing Romney of having a “sanctuary mansion” at his own home. 
Watch the debate format produce raw moments »
“In his case, there were six sanctuary cities. He did nothing about them. There was a sanctuary mansion — at his own home, illegal immigrants were being employed,” Giuliani said.
Romney denied Giuliani’s allegation, and the two raised their voices as they tried to talk over each other.
For more of this story http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/28/debate.main/index.html
Joshua Lawrence Lazard 
From http://www.UCCtruths.com/ :
Obama and the United Church of Christ
Thursday, November 29, 2007
The Washington Post has a horrible article on the rumors circulating around the internet that Sen. Barack Obama is really a Muslim. Rather than dispelling it, the article in effect just recirculates old news that will do little to clarify that Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ. From the article, apparently voters don’t know that Obama is a member of the UCC:
A CBS News poll in August showed that a huge number of voters said they did not know Obama’s faith, but among those who said they did, 7 percent thought he was a Muslim, while only 6 percent thought he was a Protestant Christian .
Back in February when UCCtruths.com broke the story that there were negotiations to have Obama speak at the General Synod, part of the political strategy for Obama in giving the speech was to give him a platform to make it clear that he was a Protestant Christian. Even then, Obama was quoted by the Associated Press as saying “I think the majority of voters know that I’m a member of the United Church of Christ, and that I take my faith seriously.”
According to the poll cited in the Washington Post article, voters don’t know his faith. From the CBS poll:
Sometimes, voters misperceive a candidate’s religion. In August, CBS News asked registered voters what they thought Barack Obama’s religion was. Most of them – 84 percent – said they didn’t know. But the largest number of those who thought they did know – nearly half of those who guessed any religion at all – thought Obama was a Muslim.
Clearly the publicity Obama received from his speech at General Synod did little to help him clarify what his faith is. Although I still believe Obama’s speech before the General Synod violated IRS rules prohibiting political campaign intervention, I don’t think any other Presidential candidate has done more to fuse faith and politics than he has… and, at this point, I don’t know what more he could do to clarify his faith.