Newsweek: The Myth of the Evangelical Voting Bloc: Megachurch pastor Rick Warren on the 2008 campaign. (Nov 30, 2007)

NEWSWEEK: How is the evangelical vote shaping up? Who's got it?

Rick Warren: The biggest myth and the biggest misunderstanding about evangelicals is that they are a voting bloc. This article that came out on the cover of The New York Times Magazine saying the evangelical vote was splintering--the guy just didn't get it, they never have been a voting bloc. They tend to vote for people, not down party lines. Evangelicals--what they have in common is not their political views but their commitment to Christ. I don't really believe in Blue and Red States. What I really see is urban values and the-rest-of-the-country values. In the 2004 election, 94 percent of Manhattan went for Kerry. What do I know about Manhattan? You can't afford to live there if you're a family. There's a preponderance of single adults, and single adults tend to be more liberal than people with families. So I don't really believe in a Red and Blue division. America is really purple, a combination of both. People think, "Evangelicals, they're all just one thing"--well, they're not.

In the 2008 race, two guys could have been the evangelical candidate, Sam Brownback or Mike Huckabee, and they divided that vote in half. One drops out, and all of a sudden you have a "surge" for Huckabee.  I think people are reading the whole thing wrong. On top of that, you know what? America loves change. We love change. No party stays in power all the time.

But come on, evangelicals have traditionally voted as a bloc over the past 30 years.

Here's what the bloc is. Evangelicals tend to vote for people who claim to be born again. Every president back to Carter--Bush One didn't make a big deal about it, but he would say that. What do all those guys have in common? Nothing, except that all six of them were, quote, "born again."  It didn't matter whether they were Republican or Democrat. What's interesting to me is how much Democrats have run toward expressing their faith and how much Republicans have run away from expressing their faith this year.