At a meeting Tuesday in Denver, about 100 conservative Christian leaders from around the country agreed to unite behind the candidacy of John McCain, a politician they have long distrusted, marking the latest in a string of movement that bodes well for McCain's general election prospects among the Republican base.
"Collectively we feel that he will support and advance those moral values that we hold much greater than Obama, who in our view will decimate moral values," said Mat Staver, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal advocacy group, who previously supported Mike Huckabee's candidacy.
"There are people who came through the primary with very mixed emotions of the candidate," Staver continued, noting that many in the group had been in Denver to attend a separate meeting for pastors. "This event was to put those aside."
The group included leaders like Phyllis Schlafly, the long-time leader of Eagle Forum; Steve Strang, the publisher of Charisma magazine; Phil Burress, a prominent Ohio marriage and anti-pornography activist; David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders and Donald Hodel, a former secretary of the Interior, who previously served on the board of Focus on the Family. Jim Dobson, the head of Focus and an outspoken critic of McCain, did not attend. The McCain campaign was also not directly represented at the meeting.
The Christian conservatives made their feelings and their concerns known, as they right should have done, but when all is said and done it came down to who they trusted more on the issues that were important to them and while McCain and the Christian right have had their ups and downs, they have decided that Barack Obama is unacceptable to them and as one person put it:
"None of these people want to meet their maker knowing that they didn't do everything they could to keep Barack Obama from being president. "You've got these two people running for president. One of them is going to become president. That's the perspective. That that's the whole discussion."
The article goes on to mention that even those that have been critical of John McCain in the past are not speaking out loudly about the need to unite behind him for the position of President of the United states of America.
With this support, given now, with months still to go in the general election campaign, it gives these groups the opportunity to help McCain shore up his far right conservative support.
In the month of May, John McCain and Barack Obama were very close in donations to their campaign with Obama raising $22 million in May and McCain reported raising $21.5 million in May.
Remember also that it was reported that the RNC has 13 times the amount of money in the bank to help McCain than the DNC does to help Obama.
This support from the conservative Christians will help with McCain's fundrasing because this is a bloc that votes, gives, and goes all out for the candidates of their choice once they have decided to unite behind them.
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