For a long time, God-o-Meter thought the battle against Islamic terrorism could become a “values issue” among evangelicals, joining abortion and gay marriage in the hot button bucket. That’s how God-o-Meter made sense of all those polls showing Rudy Giuliani–Mayor 9/11–in first place for so long, even among evangelicals. But it’s been John McCain who’s made the case more forcefully than anyone that evangelicals should make terrorism their top issue. An exchange from McCain’s interview yesterday with David Brody:

Brody: How do you tangibly bring some of these folks in Washington, these groups and others that really kind of have it in for you a little bit? How do you bring everybody together when you’re President?”
But third of all, I really believe the majority of our religious conservatives are more concerned than anybody else about the threat of radical Islamic extremism. They know what an evil this is. They know what a threat it is to everything we stand for and believe in. So I believe I can appeal to those large numbers of conservatives who I think I can prove am best able to confront that evil.
I recognize that there are areas where we may have disagreed on, but overall, I am very proud of my conservative record, and I hope they’ll examine it.

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