Christianity Today

Early online punditry: Religious conservatives are in control of the country

George Bush has been given another four years in the White House, say both conservative and liberal activists, but the biggest winners today are probably religious conservatives. It's no mistake that his acceptance speech today included a promise to "uphold our deepest values of family and faith."

"The evidence points to the evangelicals as Bush's primary engine of victory," writes National Review's Larry Kudlow.

Religion poll guru John Green and Steve Waldman of Beliefnet do the math on the exit polls and agree: "In the pivotal states, he benefited from the strong support of evangelical Christians and, just as important, an impressive showing among regular churchgoing Catholics and mainline Protestants."

The Christian Coalition says "Christian evangelicals" are the group that put Bush over the top. The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins and former Bush opponent Gary Bauer prefer to focus on "values voters."

Concerned Women for America does a bit of dancing.

"Evangelicals voted in force in this year's election, securing the presidency for George W. Bush, granting parents in Florida the right to be notified before their minor daughter's abortion, and passing marriage protections laws in every state they were offered — even liberal Oregon," writes senior policy director Wendy Wright. "President Bush knows his strongest base, who they are and what drives them. Perhaps this is because, as many evangelicals and conservative Catholics can relate, he is one of us." (He's a conservative Catholic? No, as Green has earlier explained, "traditionalists" in both Protestant and Catholic camps have more in common with each other than they do with their ecclesiological ...

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