Land: Enthusiasm gap gone thanks to Palin

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL – Evangelical leader Richard Land said Monday that Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate has energized evangelicals and the conservative base so completely that there is no more “enthusiasm gap.”
 
{mosads}“I can’t tell you how the enthusiasm gap has disappeared; it’s gone,” said Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “They’re as enthusiastic about this ticket as they were about George Bush.”
 
Land admitted during a forum on faith and politics at the University of Minnesota that there remain outstanding issues between evangelicals and McCain – most notably his authorship of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, for which he said evangelicals will never forgive McCain.
 
But Land repeatedly praised Palin and predicted afterward that McCain would rival Bush’s 78 percent haul among evangelical voters.
 
“I think McCain will do at least 70, probably 75 percent of evangelical voters,” Land said.
 
Much has been made of Democrats’ increasing push for centrist Catholic and evangelical voters, and Democratic nominee Barack Obama has made a point to talk about his Christian faith on the campaign trail.
 
Land said that Obama’s only chance to increase his share of those voters was if McCain had picked a pro-choice candidate like former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge or Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), instead of Palin.