which is to say that there is nothing in the DNA of most evangelicals that compels them to consistently pull the lever for the GOP. Scratch the suface of an evangelical's geneology and you'll find FDR Dems, dustbowl socialists, small farmers with a soft spot for Henry A. Wallace, small business people suspicious of Wall Street and the plutocrats. The bricks and mortar or clapboard of their churches may be exactly the same as it was when Fala scampered on the White House lawn, but that old time religion has long since been harnessed to an agenda scrubbed clean of the Gospels' redistributionist zeal. That is starting to change and Huckabee is a small but encouraging sign for us. Don't support his candidacy, support his message--I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. And don't fear evangelicals. I will crawl out on a thin green limb (more like a marshmellow roasting stick) here and state that gay marriage and abortion are sunsetting as the sine qua non issues for many. Sometimes a cause exhausts itself and its adherents move on. A menu of causes now motivates evangelicals: prison reform, AIDS in Africa, education in the third world, poverty, and the environment. While we may disagree with their motivations and methodologies in some cases, there is room for common ground here. Who on the left doesn't want a more compassionate penal system in this country? Prison ministries are huge and a great cause for evangelicals today and they are at the forefront of improving conditions in state lock-ups in the south and west. And who among us would oppose a more aggressive and targeted foreign aid approach to sub-Saharan Africa? Here's common ground and a compelling target of opportunity for a particular presidential candidate with roots in that beleaguered region of the world, and a lexicon drawn in part from the book these folks hold so dear.
