The proper reply to right wing religiosity is not to insist that politics and religion don't mix. This is the stock response of the left.

Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo to serve the common good and to leave this nation better than we found it.

When times are tough constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world cooperation works better. After all nobody's right all the time and a broken clock is right twice a day.

Flipping the dial through available radio stations there will blare out to any listener an array of broadcasts 24/7 propagating Religious Right politics along with what they deem to be 'old-time gospel preaching.' This is especially true of what comes over the airwaves in Bible Belt southern states.

I think things changed as a result of a certain perception of our politics. When we went through our zealous self-righteous period it didn't exactly win us any friends.

The message that I gave on the - on the steps today was that you need to stand for those things that are right and empower the individual. Believe in the power of one person. Don't believe that you can't do it. Everybody wants - everybody wants a shot. That we can all agree on. Beyond that it becomes politics. I'm not talking politics.

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.

There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?