Who will govern the new religious right?
History may look back at this Republican primary season and judge that answering that question — not determining the nominee — could be its greatest significance. Even if Sen. John McCain wins the race for the White House, he’s likely, at his age, to be a one-term, caretaker president. But a newly reconstituted religious right will be helping determine who wins the presidency for decades. So whoever ends up heading it will potentially enjoy a much more powerful position.
That there’s now a pitched battle for the soul of the religious right is a horrifying thought to Republican leaders long familiar with the old religious right, a hierarchical group dominated by larger-than-life figures who’d anointed themselves Jesus’ political representatives. But that movement is withering at the top and in revolt at the grass-roots.
Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy, two of the most formidable religious right leaders of the past quarter-century, have died. Evangelical stalwarts James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson are moving ever closer to retirement. Meanwhile, a slew of self-appointed political shepherds are becoming politically marginalized and out of touch with an increasingly independent evangelical flock.
