5 faithy players to watch at the Republican National Convention

August 28th, 2012
10:01 AM ET
By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor

(CNN) – The speakers at this week's Republican National Convention include prayer givers, Mormon leaders and politicians famous for their appeal to religious voters.

Here are five faithy players circulating in Tampa, Florida, this week, including those with prominent speaking roles and others who are organizing behind the scenes:

1. The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez. The president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Coalition, Rodriguez has blasted Republicans like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer for taking a tough line on illegal immigration and has knocked the broader GOP for opposing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But Rodriguez is closing the Republican National Convention's first day with a prayer Tuesday, helping to give presumptive nominee Mitt Romney entrée to the Latino community, a swing voting bloc that has largely abandoned the Republican Party over immigration policy in recent elections. Rodriguez says he’s planning “a prayer for reconciling righteousness with justice, truth with civility, Billy Graham’s message with Dr. King’s march.”

2. Ralph Reed. He pioneered socially conservative outreach for the Republican Party, leading the Christian Coalition in the 1990s and helping George W. Bush organize evangelicals and Catholics for his 2004 re-election campaign. Now, Reed wants to bring that organizing into the Internet era, as head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Reed’s group held a convention kickoff event Sunday that drew the likes of Newt Gingrich and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. One of Reed’s key goals in Tampa and for the next couple of months: keeping peace between the tea party and the Christian right, whose members don’t always see eye to eye on priorities.

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