• At the Democrats' party, a Pentecostal minister

The request befuddled Leah Daughtry. The experienced political hand in charge of planning next month's Democratic National Convention — a self-described "black chick from Brooklyn" and ordained Pentecostal minister who keeps a Bible in her purse — didn't know what to tell the atheists. Daughtry, 44, was preparing for an Aug. 24 interfaith service that will open the Democrats' gathering here — a first for a party that hasn't always gotten God. Before her was an angry letter from a secularist group that wanted to know whether atheists would be on the podium.