Can Obama Win Evangelical Votes?

Nicole Russell has an interesting post up on The American Thinker positing that Barack Obama may be able to make inroads with conservative evangelical voters who were sufficiently disenchanted with the GOP to stay home in large numbers in the 2006 Congressional elections. Russell's argument seems to be premised on the fact that Obama is young and charming, which has eeemingly endeared him to some evangelicals, and his willingness to speak openly about his faith, something of a new phenomenon for a Democrat candidate. Russell acknowledges Obama's very liberal record, but points out that he has largely been courting a bloc of evangelicals more interested in AIDS and poverty than abortion and gay marriage. As interesting as the theory is, and as appealing as I am sure the Democrat party finds the prospect of peeling away evangelical votes, I wouldn't bet too much on the likelihood of the outcome. Fact is, evangelicals, and many conservatives, deserted the GOP in 2006 because the GOP deserted the principles that got it elected in the first place. While the Rick Warren's of the world are no doubt happy to have Barack Obama sit on the dais at AIDS and anti-poverty get togethers, the likelihood that a guy with Obama's voting record - and make no mistake, it is very, very liberal - will successfully woo the evangelical rank and file, is virtually nil.