Three former advisers for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, including her top religious outreach strategist, have joined a veteran religious consultant to form the Eleison Group.
Burns Strider, a former congressional insider named by RNS as one the top 12 people helping Dems “get religion” in 2006, headed Clinton’s outreach to religious voters. By many measures, it was a successful endeavor, with Catholics and many evangelicals turning out in droves for the New York senator. He’s also the only native of Grenada County, Mississippi ever to earn the nickname “guru.”
Eric Sapp, who helped Democratic candidates- including Sens. Robert Casey and Sherrod Brown, and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland- craft messages to appeal to people of faith in the 2006 mid-terms, is also a founding partner at the firm. Eleison will absorb Sapp’s former consulting firm Common Good Strategies, with partner Mara Vanderslice now heading the Matthew 25 Network, a PAC helping Obama in religious outreach.
The Eleison Group gets its name from the Greek word found in a prayer common to Protestant and Catholic liturgies, the Kyrie Eleison, which means “Lord, have mercy.”
Strider has an extended interview on the Washington Post’s faith blog here.
