Ma’am (I’m presuming), people have every right to base their vote on whatever reason they see fit. Funniest hat, accent, place of birth or favorite chicken recipe. I, however, don’t need a tune-up of my moral compass. I don’t cheat on my wife, don’t support killing of the unborn, don’t want gays in the military or at the altar.
The Founders understood the requirement of morality among the citizenry, but they also knew the necessity of reason. They knew a nation of lemmings, religious or otherwise would fall. They lived in the time of Inquisitions and intolerance. They were aware of mob mentalities.
I’m not talking about Dole in ‘96, I’m speaking about Bush I in ‘92, the Evangelicals gave 19% to Ross Perot. In 1996 they gave 43% to B.J. Clinton. In 2000, they gave 42% to Al Gore. In a word, they are unreliable.
I am sorry but that was not just Evangelicals that left Bush I but a whole heck of a lot of them did when it was found out that his wife was pro-choice....his "read my lips, no new taxes" crap showed what his word meant and who he really was. It was mostly the strong lower taxes vote that moved to Perot. Since Perot's wife was a big Planned Parenthood player most of our moral vote stayed home or held their nose like I did and said well at least the VP was ok. The strong no holds barred moral vote stayed home that election.
The 42% of Evangelicals you are quoting and I have no clue if those numbers are right are not the Republican base that votes morals which we are talking about.
Not all Evangelicals vote their morals first and just because somebody on a survey say they are Evangelical does not mean that is what they first use as their bases for their vote. Those people who could vote Perot or Clinton are not the democrats that left that party because of morals or vote their morals they are the easily led wishy-washy middle who vote what they think is the winner of that cycle and not who we are talking about just because they say they are Evangelical on a stupid survey because they sit in a pew once a year on some holiday does not make them the moral voter that stays home instead of following the party blindly.
We are talking apples and oranges...I am talking the moral Republican voter that causes us to lose each and every time we give them a rino and the party heads are to stupid to figure it out. You are talking about a large sub group of people as a whole that checks a box on a survey that is no different then taking a every person that checks the white race box on a survey and looking at their vote as a whole. They do not vote as a group and just because they say they are white on a survey does mean it factors into their vote.