I'll second Dana's earlier theory of "aspirational voting" among the younger end of the conservative base, and here's why. While David Frum and Michael Barone suggest that lower marriage (and higher divorce) rates in this group make them less likely to vote "values" (i.e., Republican), what Barone calls their "chaotic and undisciplined" lifestyles might just make them perfect targets for conversion to the cause. Young people who have had drug addictions, skirmishes with the law, relationship problems, abortions, divorce, and any manner of youthful indiscretion are a key audience for the seeker-sensitive mega-church/Christian festival-type outreach that hammers home the notion that if you get right with Jesus, you'll not only be forgiven for your hedonistic lifestyle, your life will actually improve in every conceivable way, including economically. ("Seeker-sensitive" means the church caters to non-believers, attempting to draw in new followers, and making the Gospel more hip, friendly, accessible, and self-affirming.) Embedded in that type of evangelism, more often than not, is a deeply conservative and traditional view of world, including militant opposition to abortion and homosexuality and an emphasis on sexual purity. Many televangelists and youth ministries, like Ron Luce's Teen Mania, which graces the cover of Charisma magazine this month, tell their own come-to-Jesus histories as a morality tale in which they are saved from the temptations of the secular world. The theology is anti-liberal, meaning that government and secular society provide no answers to personal or global problems. --Sarah Posner
