"Values voters" getting a clue and getting riled up

Conservative Evangelicals have noticed that, during campaign season, they are the most popular girl at the dance. In between election cycles, however, they're the little thing on the side that nobody wants the family to know about.

They have had about enough of feeling used and are putting the GOP on notice. They want what they want and they want it now. That means a ban on abortion, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and prohibitions on flag-burning. And, that's just a start.

"It seems like for only six months, every two years — right around election time — that we're even noticed," said Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council.

"Some of these better pass," he added. "You notice when it's just lip service being paid."

Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer agreed that the effort matters.

"If they get to these things this summer, which we expect that they will, that will go a long way toward energizing the values voters at the base of the Republican Party," said Bauer, head of Americans United to Preserve Marriage.

GOP leaders long have known that the war and merely riding the coattails of a second-term president could disillusion their base.

If there was any doubt, conservatives issued a concise warning last month. Four groups representing evangelical Christians said an internal survey found that 63 percent of "values voters" — identified as evangelical Christians whose priorities include outlawing abortion and banning same-sex marriage — "feel Congress has not kept its promises to act on a pro-family agenda."

The Family Research Council, which headlined the survey, also announced it would hold a "Values Voter Summit" in September to "raise the bar of achievement for this Congress." At the top of the agenda could be a call for new leadership in Congress if those in power have not acted on social conservatives' issues.

The Republican Party cannot afford to alienate its base any more than it already has. Especially with the immigration debacle, the GOP will need every single vote it can get. Republican politicians will spend the summer and autumn falling all over each other to prove that they are "values" candidates.

Of course, while the effort may result in shoring up the support of the social conservative base, it will look mighty ugly to the rest of the American electorate, which has begun to swing back toward moderation, which many voters were willing to abandon in the wake of 9/11. The disastrous war in Iraq, combined with the dawning realization that Bush and the Rubber Stamp Republicans really have done nothing to make us safer, will make it harder to get knee-jerk support on the basis of national security. That ship has sailed. Even nuking Iran won't bring it back.

If the Democratic Party can inspire its own base to throw the bums out, they will find plenty of indpendents and even some moderate Republicans willing to join them. But, between now and then, expect the GOP to pull out all the stops. They fight ugly even in the best circumstances. When they are feeling desperate, however, you had better sleep with your eyes open.