Those Oogedy Boogedy Christians

Is there evidence that suburban independents chose not to vote Republican primarily or even pluralily* because they worried about what Kathleen Parker calls the Oogedy Boogedy sect within the party? (i.e., Andrew's Christianists, Ross's conservative evangelicals.)? Lots of people assume that there is. This assumption is common more to liberals and centrists than it is to conservatives, of course. It'd be good to see some hard numbers from either side of this debate.

The problem with Sarah Palin, at least according to pre-election polls, was not that she exemplified/amplified the Christian right. It was that voters perceived her to be incompetent and not able to handle the job of commander in chief. In any event, there might be evidence to support this claim; Barack Obama ( a self-described evangelical, it must be said) turned over a whole bunch of suburbs in fast-growing areas. Democrats tried mightily to make inroads with conservative evangelicals, and they failed. This demographic group is, as Larison points out, is one of the most reliable factions within the party.  At this point, they matter enough. The dirty secret is not that a large part of the Republican establishment is worried about their influence. There are two secrets, actually: one -- that the "leaders" of the various movements within social conservatism are ill-adapted to modern politics and can exacerbate tensions between the movement and outsiders; and two -- that a large part of the Republican establishment believes they can pander to these voters, not address their core concerns, and still rely on them for support. You can't build a Republican Party without them, but, depending on where you are in this great land of ours, you can safely ignore their cultural demands and still be a success, even if you're a Republican.  When Charlie Crist ran for governor of Florida, he vacillated between pandering to the right and ignoring them. As governor, he's ignored them. And his approval rating is at 68%. 

The demographics are changing, and it's probably true that the proportion of voters who identify as conservative evangelicals -- white conservative evangelicals -- will decline over time. It's also probably true that white conservative evangelical identifiers will become less focused on the cultural issues that defined our politics in the 1990s and more focused on the challenges of globalization, the environment and technology. That's the generational ticking time bomb for single issue pro-life voters. But the realities of politics today are such that the GOP cannot win national elections without the enthusiastic support of white evangelical Christians. They can try; it won't happen. That depresses moderates in the party, it depresses atheists and agnostics in the party, but it's the reality.  The results of 2004 showed that, given certain conditions and issue sets, winning coalitions can be formed.  Maybe the Bush-Iraq-Terrorism-Economy-Katrina event chain has changed all of that forever; maybe not.

To throw this out there: it will be easier for a conservative Catholic nominee, like, say, Bobby Jindal, to expand the Republican coalition rather than a white evangelical protestant like Mike Huckabee.

* = an adverb I appear to have made up, but one that ought to be in the dictionary, no?  I guess I could use "partly."  But what's an adverb for a quantity less than fifty percent but more than, say, 30 percent?