Let’s hear a discussion on Sarah Palin’s popularity and what it means for a cohesive Republican Party. Sarah Palin was increasingly popular amongst a segment of the Republican Party, drawing larger crowds than McCain and represented the most watched speech at either convention. But she also increasingly drew sharp criticisms from others in the conservative party, and some polls suggested she actually cost McCain moderate votes. The evangelical vote represents a huge percentage of the Republican base, 40% plus, and much more in some states. They did come out and vote for the McCain/Palin ticket in significant numbers. Current reports suggest that the evangelical turnout was at least equal to that of 2004 and higher in some states like Indiana. The reality was that the evangelical vote was not enough in this election. The Republican Party needs to pull in more moderate voters, especially in the battleground states. How can the party grow when its existing base turns off the available electorate? It seems to be increasingly difficult for the Party to find leaders that can turn out the social conservatives and appeal to moderate voters in significant numbers, Bush may well have been a rare exception, and not a repeatable event. The problem seems to be that the religious right has awoken to its new political power within the Republican Party. They react to candidates that share their values, Bush or Palin for example, but the backlash from the rest of the electorate has pushed the negative perceptions of these leaders to new heights. Many from these circles have hopes for a continued political career for Palin, but can she ever win a national majority or only energize the Republican base? Bush beat both Gore and Kerry in 2000 and 2004 respectively, but both elections showed a much more narrow result in the Electoral College. In 2008 the Democrats made significant gains in many states where the evangelical vote wasn’t enough. The challenge facing Republicans is to grow their base from the middle, while not losing evangelicals in significant numbers. Yet these coalitions seem to be growing further and further apart, as evidenced in this election. The question remains who will the Republican’s appeal to in coming years. So far the only meaningful plan seems to be waiting for Democrats to lose their appeal to moderate voters, but that may not happen for the same type of leader that can also appeal to the evangelical base.