TURNOUT WAS THE KEY

Much has been made of the exit poll information that came out of the national election held earlier this month. One of the key components the MSM has latched onto as a reason for the re-election of the President is the so-called 'moral values' issue. The atheistic/agnostic liberal media elites have conjured up the image of millions of bible-thumping evangelicals streaming out of their homes on election day to vote for the man they believe was chosen by God to be our President.

It's a compelling image, and has the virtue of being true for some of the electorate. The problem with it is that it doesn't explain the President's victory. Only a relatively small fraction of the population of Bush voters (over 60 million of them, by the way) are born-again Christians. Presumably, not even all of them consider the President as chosen by God to lead us. So how to explain the 60 million? The soon-to-be chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, has the answer in this morning's Washington Times.

Although Sen. John Kerry turned out large numbers of Democrats earlier this month, the president turned out even more Republicans. Mr. Mehlman explained that although Democrats used paid union members to get out the vote, Republicans used volunteers who were neighbors of the voters they targeted. "At the end of the day, love beat money," he said. "And the fact that 1.4 million volunteers, and 7.5 million e-activists, were out working their hearts out, day to day, beat a paid army."

It wasn't RELIGIOUS conviction that turned out those GOP voters, it was simply CONVICTION. Only a person of great conviction will volunteer for a cause. In this case, millions of people volunteered to help the GOP get their voters out. Those folks, for a wide variety of reasons, believed that it was imperative to re-elect the President. Many of the millions who responded to the call of the volunteers felt the same way. It was this energy and conviction that put George W. Bush back in the White House for four more years. Will you call me an evangelical (I'm not) if I say "Hallelujah"?