Kudos to Chris Lehmann on a fascinating and fair-handed review of a recent study on evangelical elites. I don't have a whole heck of a lot to say about it just yet, but the one aspect which strikes me as most fascinating is the disconnect between evangelical elites and the rank-and-file. The conservatizing influence of evangelical Christianity, after all, is largely felt in the way that evangelicals vote and participate in politics. Twenty-five years ago, evangelicals were not-entirely-reliable Democrats; fifty years ago, they were split between being apolitical, and being reliable Democrats; now, they appear to be reliable Republicans, but might be swinging back to the left. Is this shift due to top-down control by evangelical elites, or is it the result of grassroots evangelical conservative self-identification? If it's the former, then the disconnect noted in this study is potentially a useful opening which Democrats can exploit to help destabilize the Republican coalition.
Full disclosure: I've done a small bit of technical development work for the New York Observer in the recent past.
