REQUIRED is such a loaded word. I don’t think he’s required to do anything.
I don’t think he’s required to send me information and fundraising appeals, but for some reason he does it. Why? Because it’s what you do as a candidate.
I think if I were a candidate for President I would be looking to have a talk with James Dobson, along with a host of other leaders and movers of the core constituencies that make up the conservative base.
Not because it is a requirement, but because it may prevent negative stuff like a letter from one of those leaders denouncing your candidacy.
Or you COULD decide that, as a candidate, you will “stand against” a mover or shaker like James Dobson. In which case you can’t expect that person to say nice things about you.
Senator McCain took that road in 2000 in Virginia, attacking two leaders of the religious conservative movement, and it probably as much as anything cost him the nomination.
I don’t expect Fred Thompson to make that same mistake, and I DO think it would be a mistake.
But thinking he SHOULD do something because it would help his campaign is a far cry from REQUIRING him to do that.
On the other hand, a candidate is not REQUIRED to raise money either, but I think we’d all agree that if they don’t raise money, they aren’t going to win the nomination.
“Christian” leaders expect to be kowtowed to, or they will take revenge is what you are saying.
Who makes the lists? How far down the totem pole do you have to go? Do you have to meet with Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Amish, Mennonites, Plymouth Brethren, Southern Baptists, ad nauseum?
So this is something like Sleeping Beauty. If you forget to invite the wrong person to a party, you get cursed.