In America's conservative heartland the talk now is not just of a win for Obama. With the Democrats poised for gains in the Senate and the House, moderate Republicans fear a wipeout that would leave their party in the grip of evangelicals increasingly out of touch with the public. Could the country be on the brink of change as deep as that ushered in by Reagan?...If current polling holds true, the party may be reduced to its core support in the solid red heartland that runs through Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia and other southern and western states. That would trigger a profound crisis for a party that just three years ago was basking in the afterglow of a convincing presidential win and dreaming of creating a 'permanent majority'.
...'The Republican party is going to have to work out what sort of party it actually wants to be. It's a changing world for them,' said Professor Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside. It might not be easy. A powerful Democratic win could wipe out Republican moderates. It could leave the party in the grip of its conservative and evangelical base who remain critical of figures such as McCain but who are wildly enthusiastic about politicians such as Palin. The Republican party could end up in a bitter civil war for its political future.'
One of the key battlegrounds in that conflict will be the role of religion in Republican politics. The evangelical base has been a key part of the political coalition that has brought the party such success in recent years. Political guru Karl Rove cemented evangelical ideas into President George W Bush's brand of conservatism and used them to inspire a very effective 'get out the vote' team in elections.
...Obama, who is a regular churchgoer and looks at ease in religious surroundings, has made huge strides in appealing to evangelical voters. His campaign has aggressively courted the religious vote, holding regular meetings with evangelical leaders...Far from being a monolithic bloc, evangelicals have increasingly embraced a wider variety of causes. Some are just as likely to campaign on fighting Aids and issues in the developing world as to crusade against abortion and gay marriage. One of the hottest topics in conservative Christianity at the moment is environmental conservation and global warming, neither of which is a Republican strong suit.
Yet, following a possible November defeat, the Republican party itself could still remain firmly in the hands of its conservative evangelical wing. Even as America drifts away from causes that right-wing evangelicals care about, the Republican base remains fixated on them.
There is increasingly a sense that what works for the Republican base no longer works for the rest of the country...In a process reminiscent of the Labour party in the 1980s and the Conservatives in the late 1990s, the Republicans could end up as an extremist rump, reduced to a few stronghold states and obsessed with causes that seem not to matter to the general public...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/26/uselections2008-republicans
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