REALIGNING:

Evangelized foreign policy? (Howard LaFranchi, 3/02/06, The Christian Science Monitor)

As Mr. Bush gave his attention to Darfur, one of the world's most high-profile humanitarian crises, he was almost certainly cheered not just by a coterie of evangelical advisers, but also the sizable Christian right constituency. But his focus on a forlorn region of Africa suggests deeper shifts in the forces influencing US foreign policy.

Even as many in Washington trumpet the return of realism to US foreign policy and the decline of the neoconservative hawks, the staying power of the evangelicals is likely to blunt what might otherwise have been a steep decline in Wilsonian ideals.

Which is another reason why it makes sense for Democrats to co-opt the triad of issues that moved Buchanan and Perot voters: protectionism, nativism and isolationism. Though they'll lose the Latino vote to the GOP.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 1, 2006 10:19 PM