[mburbank]

I think Andrew Sullivan is quite correct. I wouldn't call W a conservative, a religous conservative or really anything at all. His policies reveal no single coherent ideology or evn the more secular ral politic. W is a perfect cypher for Karl Rove who has only one agenda, and that is the consolodation of power. If that currently calls for a religous conservative stance, so be it. But be sure, if it calls for a retreat from the evenagelicals tomorrow, W will retreat.

In service of this consolodation of power (see Grover Norquists goal of a permanent one party system) there has been a lengthy push to replace speciffic ideology with team spirit. A speciffic ideology would mean that if you were against nation building and your leader began talking about exporting democracy it would trouble you. It would mean that if you passionately believed in states rights and your leader abandoned the concept because he was, well, in charge now and didn't need states rights anny more, it would trouble you.

If however you are a fan/member of the Red team (or Blue for that matter) all that matters is scoring points. Oceana is our steadfast ally. We have always been at war with Oceana.

Right now those who favor a 'culture of life' feel as if they are partisans, not fans. But that's exactly what fiscal conservatives and federalists felt like not so long ago. It remains to be seen what will happen to the so called evangelical vote should their values cease to be a key ingredient in mainatining power.

Just recently at an evangelical conference, there was quite a scripturally based push to do more about the environment and to fight the death penalty. If these views gain prevelance but not enough power to swing an election, we'll get to see who's concerned about God 's will and who a serious fan.