God forbid we use science

[kandrathe]

...
Issues that convince the hard-core Evangelicals are likely to swing the major Evangelical organizations over to one candidate. When that happens, the power of the pulpit in politics brings over a much larger, perhaps more moderate group, but in huge numbers. Not every Evangelical has to be completely over the top 700-club-crazy for a candidate to win broad Evangelical support by making appeals to the conservative wing. Those same conservatives, since they represent the largest faction of Evangelicals, control all their political apparatus.

I think this is mis-perception. The surveys we've looked at show that Evangelicals span from the ultra progressive to the ultra conservative politically, and in fact it is the "bleeding heart do good" crowd that is more likely to want to use government to solve social issues like poverty. You seem to insist that "Evangelicals" are a predictable voting bloc, and I would say they are no more predictable than Catholics. In that broadest sense, Evangelical merely means that the person believes in openly discussing their faith. The closer you get to the Barna group definition, the more likely the individual would be conservative. Religious ultra conservatives span all sects of Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. And, again, the surveys we've looked at show that the distribution of political philosophy are equally distributed across beliefs. Your 25% number is clearly split between Democrats and Republicans.

But, you are right in saying that to "say the right things" will attract massively people of faith. If Mit was pandering for votes, he could have been broader in his appeal by telling religious groups that he would endeavor to keep the government clear of moral decisions. Among those issues would be sex education, parental consent, abortion, tax exemption, and enforcing secularism in the society.