While Mark Sanford works to salvage his marriage, Republicans are facing the prospect of a different kind of breakup: religious voters walking out on the GOP.
A series of sex-related scandals over the last few years has undercut the party's assertions of moral authority and, worse, may serve to reinforce the doubts that many evangelical voters have traditionally harbored about the unholiness of the political realm.
"If we place our hope in a political party or a politician, we'll be let down," said Brandt Waggoner, 25, a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., who said he spoke for many young evangelicals. "My hope is in God and not in the government."
A sudden and overwhelming shift of Christian conservatives from the GOP to the more secular-minded Democratic Party appears unlikely. As Laura Olson, an expert on religion and politics at South Carolina's Clemson University, put it: "The Republican Party is still going to be, at a minimum, the lesser of two evils."
But in politics, subtraction can be just as important as addition. If large numbers of evangelicals were to stay home on election day, or channel their activism into outlets other than politics, the GOP could suffer grave consequences; over the last generation, devout churchgoer voters have become an increasingly vital part of the shrinking Republican base.
There are, of course, plenty of Democrats who have, like South Carolina Gov. Sanford, broken their marital vows and lied to the public about their actions.
"The fact is, within any group you're going to have some people who make mistakes," said David Winston, a GOP pollster in Washington, who cautioned against painting Democrats or Republicans with too broad a brush. "It's not systemic to any one party."
In general, however, Republicans have been far more active in reaching out to religious voters, not just through conservative positions on abortion, school prayer, and lately same-sex marriage, but also by promoting an image of greater virtue and more godliness.
That makes it all the more damaging when prominent figures in the party -- especially those espousing Christian values, like Sanford and Sen. John Ensign of Nevada -- are caught transgressing.
