At a press conference this afternoon, organizers and supporters of The Call, the massive anti-abortion, anti-gay rally scheduled to take place on the National Mall tomorrow, claimed that abortion remains a "foundational issue" for young evangelicals, and challenged John McCain to pick an anti-choice, evangelical running mate lest he lose their support in November. The tenor of the event was clear: this intensely conservative wing of the evangelical movement is afraid, very afraid, of Barack Obama attracting the votes of the young voters in its ranks.
The Call's organizer, Lou Engle, who had endorsed Mike Huckabee during the primaries, was joined by Huckabee, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and High Impact Leadership Coalition president Harry Jackson, neither of whom got behind Huckabee when it mattered most to the conservative evangelical rank and file. Today, both Perkins and Jackson issued ultimatums to McCain about his prospective running mate. Jackson warned that "if Sen. McCain chooses a pro-abortion running mate, he will give the election to Obama . . . . [It] would be tantamount to political suicide." Perkins was a little less direct, but did say that choosing a pro-life, evangelical running mate would generate the necessary enthusiasm and excitement necessary to get evangelical voters to the polls. (Neither Perkins nor Jackson mentioned Huckabee, and Huckabee denied, again, wanting to be McCain's pick, and emphasized that he's supporting McCain in any event.)
