A Crisis of Political Faith for Evangelicals

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/09/a_crisis_of_political_faith_fo.html

A Crisis of Political Faith for Evangelicals
By Shawn Zeller | 9:40 AM; Sep. 17, 2007

GOP hopefuls will get no free passes this time from a religious base angered by tepid progress on its agenda

In almost every presidential election of the past three decades, social conservative and evangelical voters didn’t need anything like their own debates or special summit meetings with the candidates. That’s because their choices were so obvious early on: In 1980 there was Ronald Reagan, who coyly told the members of the evangelical Religious Roundtable that, while he understood its membership was barred from endorsing him, he felt free to endorse them. In the past two elections there was George W. Bush, who describes himself as a born-again Christian and won his second term with the support of four out of five evangelicals.

So far in the 2008 campaign, though, evangelical conservatives have been facing a very different prospect: No obviously viable candidate to rally behind and an increasingly restive mood in their ranks.

So political leaders of the religious right are stepping up efforts to find a consensus choice, starting this week by staging the first-ever Values Voter Presidential Debate for the Republican candidates. The debate, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will be moderated by Joseph Farah, who edits the conservative online news site WorldNetDaily, and the questioners will include such old lions of the movement as Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/09/a_crisis_of_political_faith_fo.html