Suspicious, Huckabee skips Baptists' meeting

Event 'all-inclusive, noncritical,' Carter says

By Frank Lockwood

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ATLANTA — The most famous Democratic Baptist politicians in the United States have flocked to Georgia the week before the state's primary elections to talk about faith and public policy with thousands of fellow Baptists.

But the top vote-getting Southern Baptist on the Republican side is skipping the event, citing concerns about the organizers' motivations.

Former President Carter and former Vice President Al Gore have already addressed the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, and former President Clinton is to speak this evening.

Even a United Methodist, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has made the pilgrimage although she is not on the official agenda. She spoke to the midwinter joint board session of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc. on Wednesday.

The Celebration, a three-day meeting of mainline, black and moderate-to-progressive Southern Baptists, has also attracted a few Republican notables to the Georgia World Congress Center. They include Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, former presidential candidate Phil Gramm and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.

For more information see today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Subscribers can read the story here on ArkansasOnline.