This is actually something I didn't know. I didn't realize that evangelicals had gone for McCain in every state in the union. I had been hearing from Obama supporters that he had been running well everywhere and in all groups. Just for giggles, everyone watch how often you hear that Obama DIDN'T win evangelicals.
Who gives a fuck? They're a do-nothing voter group anyway, pushing states that would vote Republican already to voting Republican. Big fucking deal.
Wrong. They are two very important things to the Republican Party: 1. the most reliable voting block in terms of turnout 2. the people who are the grassroots organizers, GOTV and fundraisers and so forth. They are the hands and feet of the party at the local level. In terms of the general election - in swing states like Ohio, Missouri, Florida, and now Virginia and Colorado, the margins are close enough that a highly motivated segment of the electorate could be key. The GOP has to have SOME equivalent of the various "ground crew" groups the Democrats field - this is their main one.
He wasn't trying to win them. He was trying to slice off a larger % of the vote than previous Dems, but he gave up on that in the latter part of the summer after the religious right decided to finally embrace McCain. Of course, his performance at Saddleback didn't help at all (and did the opposite of what it was intended to do). But at least he tried to court them, which is more than previous Dems tried to do.
They probably think they are going to hell if they vote for Obama... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27705755/?gt1=43001
According to an old ex-Marine at my church last Sunday: I'd say that it's a pretty prevalent opinion among evangelicals, particularly older, white ones (maybe they just need a reason to hate?).
I think I have to disagree with some of the conclusions thrown out in this thread. Gore and Kerry both did quite a bit to try to attract evangelicals. They didn't set any records but they did OK. As a whole, though, Obama didn't pursue them. I'm not going to go so far as to say he didn't care about them at all, but he certainly didn't bother making any promises to them or trying to tailor his message to attract them.
