Political Tide Turning

"Both of these men profess deep faith, but if you look into their lives, there seems to be signals that there is a major flaw," said Downs, who considers herself a nondenominational Christian.

Yet even on these issues, her views can sound imprecise.

It's not that Giuliani is divorced, it's "how he's lived that." And while at one point she says she "will not" vote for a supporter of abortion rights, she then says she prefers to vote for someone who opposes abortion. "If there was no option but to vote for someone who professed to support it, I'd still vote."

Sadie Healy, a 23-year-old who was raised Catholic in Cincinnati, said she cringes at too much religious talk from candidates. After voting for Bush in 2004 because her then-pastor, at a nondenominational evangelical church, told her "Christians should vote for Bush," Healy is wary of judging other people's relationship with God.

"I have a hard time when people head down that way. I am not God, and so, so far from it, it is never mine to question" someone else's faith, said Healy, a social worker who lives in Washington and now worships at a Baptist church. "I just want to know their personal story, to be honest -- how they came to faith."

But what constitutes a "story" isn't clear-cut. Healy thinks she understands Obama because she heard him talk about his upbringing, and how it led him to work with the poor in inner-city Chicago. But in hearing Clinton talk about her faith values, Healy wasn't clear about how they were formed. Was it a specific religious experience? Something she was taught?

One thing she knows: She'd prefer to vote for someone who believes in God -- she thinks.

"I'd like to think I'd be behind the best candidate, I don't know . . ." she says, her voice trailing off. "Basically, people resonate with people who are like them."