The Visible Army

Nearly a year ago, Free Congress Foundation president Paul Weyrich issued a letter to fellow conservative Christians declaring that evangelicals had lost the culture war. They should, he said, withdraw from politics and go back to saving souls.

Two months later, Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, both former associates of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, published a book entitled "Blinded By Might" in which they, too, called for conservative Christians to exit the national political scene.

And so, many observers expected religious conservatives to be less important in the Iowa caucuses this year than in the past. Polls and interviews before the caucuses--the first step in the Presidential nomination process--suggested religious conservatives were disillusioned with politics and poorly organized, and thus less likely to participate.

These predictions underestimated the zeal and resources of the religious right.

This week, they turned out in numbers equal to 1996, powering Steve Forbes' strong second place finish and Alan Keyes' third place showing. Perhaps most important, they provided George W. Bush with his margin of victory.

According to poll data, Bush received a little less than one-third of his support from conservative Christians. He received 33 percent of the religious right vote, besting Steve Forbes (27 percent), Alan Keyes (23 percent), and Gary Bauer (16 percent), all of whom based their strategies on support from religious conservatives.

And that suggests that the religious right is still potent, despite its recent problems and disappointments.

If so, religious conservatives may hamper the Republican's efforts to regain the White House.

That is because George W. Bush may be pulled further to the right on social issues, such as abortion, and the GOP may face continued cultural divisions within its ranks. On the other hand, the religious right may mobilize millions of voters for Republicans in the general election

According to the Voter News Service (VNS) "entrance" poll (conducted as respondents entered the caucus sites), self-described members of the "religious right" made up 37 percent of Republican caucus participants. This was the same percentage as the VNS entrance poll found in 1996. Because overall turnout was down, roughly 4,000 fewer religious conservatives participated in the 2000 caucuses than in 1996--but roughly 4,000 more than in 1988, when Pat Robertson shocked the nation with his second place Iowa finish.

If you crunch this year's numbers further, two important patterns emerge.

First, for Forbes, religious conservatives made the difference between his expected (20 percent) and actual showing (30 percent) in the caucuses, thus helping him become one of the Iowa "winners." Religious conservatives also provided Bush with his margin of victory over Forbes. In fact, without the religious right, Bush would have received 30 percent rather than 41 percent of the vote.

These figures provide some insight into the dynamics of the Republican nomination contest.

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