The Barack Obama “messaging machine” is now in full overdrive mode, seeking to mislead religiously committed Americans into thinking that Obama has a middle-of-the-road position on abortion policy and will promote “abortion reduction.”

In late September, the Obama campaign kicked off a “Faith, Family & Values Tour.” A team of Obama surrogates — including Pepperdine University law school professor Douglas Kmiec, evangelical author Donald Miller, and former congressman Tim Roemer of Indiana — will travel from state to state, seeking the votes of religiously committed Americans. According to a report on BeliefNet.com, the surrogates will be “doing grass-roots evangelizing for Obama in community centers (neutral sites — no houses of worship) and homes. The tour will continue for weeks in most of the key battleground states.”

Another article, on ChristianityToday.com, said that the states to be visited by the tour during the next month include Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

One important part of the “faith outreach” sales pitch has been to insist that Obama would promote “abortion reduction” policies — that is to say, policies that would have the practical effect of reducing the number of abortions performed, without actually restricting abortion directly. This spiel was really a public relations strategy cooked up at a liberal think tank called third way, where veteran pro-abortion activists develop “messaging” strategies to help pro-abortion politicians camouflage their positions. The third way “Culture Program” (responsible for the “abortion reduction” strategy, among other projects) is directed by Rachel Laser, whose previous job was with the Health and Reproductive Rights group at the National Women’s Law Center, and who before that worked for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, a major abortion provider.

But despite such efforts, more and more Americans are learning that the real Barack Obama is firmly committed to an agenda of sweeping pro-abortion policy changes that, if implemented, could be expected to drastically increase the numbers of abortions performed.