WASHINGTON, April 11 (UPI) -- Washington's churches and pastors are competing to land U.S. President Barack Obama and his family as parishioners as Easter approaches, observers say.
White House aides were conducting research on prospective churches and the Obamas were expected to attend services at a still-unnamed Washington church in a sort of informal audition, The New York Times reported Saturday.
"It's extremely competitive," Washington City Councilman Michael Brown told the newspaper, adding he has recommended his own church, Nineteenth Street Baptist. "Every church in the city is trying to attract the Obamas," he said.
Aides told the newspaper Obama is considering some less-well-known black and multiracial churches in a bid to reach beyond the city's collection of institutions that have traditionally appealed to past presidents.
The process has taken a long time because of Obama's deliberative nature and a determination to avoid a repeat of the controversy surrounding his decision to break with his previous pastor in Chicago, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose fiery sermons were seized upon by critics as anti-American, the newspaper said.
