yeah, they're a big part of the strategy, but let's get real, here. bush was chosen by the old guard of the GOP, the duponts and those guys, for whom religion is really not the main point: money is. if they didn't want him, he wouldn't have won. none of that legion would matter.
[WS:] I think you overestimated the power of the 'old guard.' Yes, the do exert influence that is disproportional comparing to the rest of us, but they would be unable to exert it if they did not receive at least a 'nihil obstat' is not a tacit nod of approval from the majority of the US society.
As it has been brought up on this list time and again, there is a system of values shared by the great majority of the US society that cut across class and ethnic lines, and this system entails beliefs in the supernatural, the uniqueness of the American society (Amerika ueber alles, if you will), small business and property rights, individualism and the primacy of individual over collective, as well as suspicion of government, large cities and their lifestyle and culture, and large organizations. While the duponts & co acquire their wealth and influence by hook and crook, it is this shared system of belief that allows them to *maintain and reproduce* their social position without being seriously challenged "from below."
This is not to say that there have not been any voices in the US society challenging that status quo. This is to say that such voices of dissent were either limited to challenging individual moguls rather than the whole institutional system, or otherwise fell on deaf ears. All major progressive reforms came from above - the patrician FDRs and Kennedys who saw the need to save Amerika from itself - and never challenged the core popular value system.
Wojtek