I’ve already written about Obama’s poor performance at the Saddleback forum a few weeks ago. His campaign has been trying hard to win support among moderate evangelical voters, but his answers to Rick Warren’s abortion questions were very disappointing—doing nothing to change religious voters’ views of liberal Democrats despite Obama’s policy stance to reduce the number of abortions.

Now comes Governor Palin. The self-described bible believing conservative from Alaska. The hockey mom (pitbull in lipstick) has energized the evangelical base of the GOP and infused their lukewarm support for McCain with some religious zeal. Where does this leave Obama’s chances with evangelicals? Answer: right about where John Kerry’s were in 2004.

Steve Waldman posted this report on the CT Politics blog:

I asked Mark DeMoss, Christian PR mogul who earlier said…

I just watched the forum at Saddleback with the presidential candidates conducted by Rick Warren. My initial thoughts:   

1. Obama didn’t win over any evangelicals tonight. We already knew his answers on abortion and same sex unions wouldn’t be popular, but I thought he might have won some people with his candor or moderation. I don’t think it worked. He really should have focused more on reducing the number of abortions and how his policies are proven to do just that. A tough, straight answer like, “An Obama administration will save more unborn children than a McCain administration that continues Bush’s domestic agenda” would have been amazing. Obama could have made it clear that he wasn’t going to retreat the moral ground on the abortion issue. He didn’t. He did…