Closing the God Gap

Although McCain himself did not fully capitalize on his strengths among religious voters, others tried to help. The diminished but still surviving Christian Coalition says it districted over 10 million voter guides. The Judeo-Christian Review, an ad hoc coalition of conservative clergy, dispatched over 2 million emails, faxes and robo-calls aimed at jolting over 325,000 clergy into action. James Dobson's Focus on the Family distributed a letter outlining a nightmarish America and world as it may exist in 2012, after an Obama presidency.

In the end, the religiously active mostly retained their traditionally conservative voting patterns, which perhaps helped to avert a fuller congressional route for Republicans, but was insufficient to save the McCain campaign.

Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy.