Obama breaks 50 in the Wa/Po and CBS/NYT polls - generally considered the boundary that determines if a candidate is "safe." Past Turnout models favor the Republicans.  The GOP GOTV effort, for the past two cycles, has been driven by a close association with the National Association of Evangelicals and Christian Radio.  The Midwestern and Southern GOP volunteer base was driven by evangelicals.

But the untold story of the 2004 election, according to national religious leaders and grass-roots activists, is that evangelical Christian groups were often more aggressive and sometimes better organized on the ground than the Bush campaign. The White House struggled to stay abreast of the Christian right and consulted with the movement's leaders in weekly conference calls. But in many respects, Christian activists led the charge that GOP operatives followed and capitalized upon.

This was particularly true of the same-sex marriage issue. One of the most successful tactics of social conservatives -- the ballot referendums against same-sex marriage in 13 states -- bubbled up from below and initially met resistance from White House aides, Christian leaders said.

In dozens of interviews since the election, grass-roots activists in Ohio, Michigan and Florida credited President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, with setting a clear goal that became a mantra among conservatives: To win, Bush had to draw 4 million more evangelicals to the polls than he did in 2000.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/art icles/A32793-2004Nov7.html

If you remember the amorphous question of Moral Value in 04 you may remember a flood of stories like this:

Nationwide, exit polls show that 22 percent of voters cited "moral values" as the one issue that mattered most when considering how to vote for President. In what will surely come as a shock to mainstream media, more voters cited moral values than either the economy/jobs (20 percent), terrorism (19 percent), or Iraq (17 percent). Across the nation, and particularly in key battleground states, Bush's stance on moral values stanched his staggering losses among voters who cared primarily about Iraq and the economy/jobs. Among those who cited moral values as their top priority, Bush defeated Kerry 79-18. The numbers were dramatic in Ohio, the state that ensured Bush's victory. Self-described white evangelical/born-again voters composed 25 percent of the Ohio electorate and supported Bush by a 76-24 margin. Jobs were the key concern for Ohio voters (24 percent), but moral issues was right behind (23 percent). Much like the rest of the country, these morally minded voters supported Bush 85-14.

Source : http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004 /novemberweb-only/11-1-31.0.html

How did Bush up his evangelical turnout in 04?

In 2004, the Bush team vowed to take evangelical mobilization into its own hands. In 2000, the Bush campaign had outsourced evangelical outreach to the consulting firm that Ralph Reed launched after leaving Christian Coalition. In 2004, Bush's campaign instead hired Reed to work from the inside. Officially, he was the Bush-Cheney chairman for the southeast region of the United States. But his more important assignment was to construct a vast volunteer infrastructure, extending into tens of thousands of voter precincts, to get evangelicals to the polls. "It was very new in terms of ... full-scale investment in this particular demographic," said Gary Marx, who worked under Reed as the Bush-Cheney 2004 national conservative coalition director. "It was the first time in Republican political history that the presidential campaign was run in such a way that this was a formalized element in everything we did, from radio buys to direct mail. ... It was a demographic group that was courted ... just as soccer moms were in 2000 and NASCAR dads in 2002."...

Of the 1.4 million volunteers the Bush re-election team signed up, Reed estimates that up to 350,000 were "pro-family" conservatives, mostly evangelicals. But Reed's get-out-the-evangelical-vote machine was nearly invisible to the media. The conventional wisdom was that Bush was connecting with evangelicals through coded rhetoric and conservative stances, leaving churches to mobilize themselves. Feeding that perception was the bad press the Republican National Committee got in July 2004, when it was reported that the RNC had solicited church directories from Catholic supporters in Pennsylvania. Even Richard Land, president of the public policy wing of the Southern Baptist Convention and a staunch Bush ally, said he was appalled by the strategy, calling it a "violation of the sanctity of the [church] body."

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articl es/070225/5excerpt_5.htm

So the good news (the evangelos, ironically) - John McCain is not George Bush.  Well, I guess we would be thankful if he were at this point.  But, in terms of turning out the evangelicals John McCain is not George Bush.  Clinton and Obama have held two faith forums - McCain none.  McCain nearly always refuses to talk about his faith in public.  The evangelical community has critiqued him many times, even floated a third party occasionally, which is not going to happen.

McCain's two big-figure evangelical backers are drastically different from Bush's leaders.  For Bush - Ted Haggard, the cocaine pastor, led a nation-wide group of thousands of churches.  Focus on the Family reached tens of millions of listeners daily.

For McCain -

John Hagee is considered a radical by many within the evangelical realm.  His top issue is not abortion or gay-marriage it is the theologically suspect (even amongst evangelicals) eschatological support of Israel.  

Parsely is far more charismatic (not that people like him, but in worship style) than past Christian Right Leaders.  He did lead an important GOTV effort for Bush in Ohio in 2004, but he does not have the national voice that a Ralph Reed, Ted Haggard, Dobsen, Robertson, or Falwell have.  

The Christian Right Coalition has Collapsed.

In 1976 Jimmy Carter won off of the evangelical vote.  He did had a rough 4 years in office, and the evangelicals turned to the Republicans for good.  George Bush has essentially done the same thing 30 years later.  Which brings me to my next point, which may be a contentious one -

In 2006 We Saw the beginnings of the break -

The Reagan Democrats and Evangelicals do not directly overlap, however this group of moderate evangelicals were for many years a huge swing demographic.  The evangelical rallying cries against the government were born out of the desegregation cases of the 1960s.  Southern Evangelicals felt like there social structure was under attack by the federal government.  So, after Jimmy Carter (who was perceived as a sell-out) Ronald Reagan was able to decry "Government is Evil" and he had an apt and waiting audience.  

Just take a listen to Ronald Reagan speak on "State Rights" in Philadelphia Mississippi announcing his 1980 campaign:

Oh, and in case you were wondering rather times have changed - Here is John McCain last week on "Strict Constitutionalists Judges"

I fully expect Obama to have trouble with this sort of evangelical "Reagan Democrat."  It was always as much about segregation as it was about abortion and gay marriage.  The Demographic group is exactly the same as those who supported the Dixiecrats, then George Wallace, then Ronald Reagan - only in differing generations.  There is a reason Hispanic and African American evangelicals do not lean so heavily toward Republicans, while White evangelicals do, even though they both share 'concern' for gay marriage and abortion - if you isolate for economic status the Whites still favor republicans at a heavier rate.

Clinton, currently, for some reason or another seems to be making inroads with this group.  An admirable task, which many would have deemed impossible for her only last year.  Although, our only large-sample polling of the group shows Barack Obama with a lead (all be it JE was in the race)

Hillary Clinton   
    12.3%   
John Edwards   
    18.4%   
Barack Obama   
    31.2%   

What we are facing is not that Hillary does better with evangelicals, but she does better with Older Reagan Democrat Evangelicals.

The good news, put simply, is that this generation is dying...and are no longer needed to carry national election.  They are also dying on the state level.  Look for a much depressed religious vote this cycle in Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, and Oklahoma (these states which I've seen promising data from).  A new breed of evangelicals, who do not have a racial history, is coming up.  They are looking for a rebirth of religious social activism - as was a major trait in this nation for some time.  If you visit conferences of young  (that is under 45 evangelicals) abortion and gay marriage panels are not found.  In stead it is Poverty, "Creation Care" (A terrible Term), genocide...and even a huge resurgence in evangelical pacifism in the wake of Iraq.  Young evangelicals are very much globalized, where there parent's were often isolationists.  

According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.

But, Howard Dean, don't count your chickens quite yet. College-age and 20-something Christians may be leaving the GOP, but only 5 percent of young evangelicals have joined the Democrats, according to the Pew survey. The other 10 percent are wandering the political wilderness, somewhere between "independent" and "unaffiliated."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/po litics/2004406277_evangvote11m.html
The results from the Pew poll have certainly sky-rocketed since then... as we have seen Dem registration jump throughout the nation.

In some states More evangelicals are voting in the Democratic Primary than voted for Kerry in 2004.  For instance:

"34% of white evangelical voters in Missouri and 32% of white evangelical voters in Tennessee participated in the Democratic primary."  

"Poll data from the March 4 primary in Ohio show that more than four out of ten white evangelical Christians cast their vote for a Democratic candidate."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/article s/2008/02/evidence_of_evangelical_shift. html
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp? Page=/Politics/archive/200803/POL2008031 3b.html

So this all guides me back to those national polls.  And an unanswerable question.  Does the RNC have a turnout machine distinct from the religious right?  Do they have the money to establish one?  Or, is Barack Obama simply going to slash a large section of the Republican base from under them?

Oh, and if you have not seen Obama's speech on Faith and Politics at the Sojourners Convention Check it out - This is Clip 1 of 5