Behind these events, under the rubric "Pray and A.C.T.," is Newt Gingrich's organization, Renewing American Leadership, although the frontmen for this particular initiative are former Watergate conspirator Charles Colson and evangelist Jim Garlow, who now works for Gingrich. Endorsers include top evangelical and political leaders such as Focus on the Family's Jim Daly, who took over from James Dobson; Princeton University professor Robert George; Fox News host and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee; Cindy Jacobs of the Generals of Intercession; Southern Baptist leader Richard Land, who attended the Lincoln Memorial rally at Beck's invitation; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; and Tim Wildmon, who is taking over the American Family Association from his father, Don. Also among the endorsers of Pray and A.C.T. or Renew America are Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., who was featured at the Beck rally, and David Barton, the pseudo-academic who argues that America was founded as a "Christian nation" and is often touted by Beck on television (and who headlined Beck's "Divine Destiny" pre-rally Friday evening at the Kennedy Center in Washington).

The tenets of Pray and A.C.T. are straightforward and traditional: opposition to gay marriage and any manifestation of tolerance for homosexuality; opposition to reproductive rights for women, especially abortion; and opposition to anything that violates "religious liberty" as defined by Christian ultras (which evidently doesn't cover the right to construct an Islamic center on Park Place in Manhattan).

According to the Pray and A.C.T. website, prayer is vital but not sufficient to becoming "authentically Biblical," which requires "voting in all elections only for candidates who affirm the sanctity of life in all stages and conditions, the integrity of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and religious liberty and respect for conscience ... The foundational moral principles ... must become a guiding force in every local, state and national election -- year after year -- including this year's election."

If that isn't clear enough, the schedule for Pray and A.C.T.'s pre-election crusade starts with a sports arena prayer service, led by the radical theocrat Lou Engle, and then moves on to a countdown event at a church in Washington on Sept. 12, followed by an official launch event in Washington on Sept. 19, concluding with the Lincoln Memorial rally on Oct. 30 -- two days before Election Day.

Fred Clarkson places Pray and A.C.T. in recent historical context on Talk2Action, discusses why it marks an important moment in right-wing politics, and explains what may be different this year:

The Christian Right has often sought to stay the hand of God, angry with our failings as a nation, by 'standing in the gap' at large prayer rallies and pleading for mercy. They have made a special point of doing so in the run up to national elections since 1980, praying for godly government and righteous candidates, and this year is no exception. The beneficiaries are almost always Republicans and this year is probably no exception in that regard as well. But there is also an ominous element that mostly transcends parties and is on vivid display as we enter the fall campaign season.

On Labor Day weekend, Lou Engle, head of the fiery neo-Pentecostal group, The Call, is leading a worship service in a sports arena in Sacramento, California and a "solemn assembly" at the state Capitol the next day. These events were initially billed as a tenth anniversary of The Call's first youth rally on the national capital mall which drew a claimed 400,000 people. Since then, the Sacramento event has been repositioned as the kick-off of a major Christian Right fall political campaign initiative. Engle says it will be the "hinge of history" opening the door to "the greatest awakening" and "returning our nation to its righteous roots."

There are several important dimensions of this effort. One is that this is an effort at reaching and mobilizing evangelical young people into Republican politics, particularly in California; another, is that it represents a new stage in the long term cooperation between conservative Catholics, fundamentalists and the neo-Pentecostals. And finally, the militant rhetoric of Engle's armies of activists is escalating, and their organizational infrastructure seems to be increasing, especially in cyberspace.

... The eminence grise of this initiative appears to be former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose organization Renewing American Leadership (ReAL) is apparently the force behind a series of Christian Right events being organized under the rubric of "Pray & Act." This is politically important, but as Gingrich's role becomes more public, it may also become morally dissonant, since Gingrich is well known (and has been recently highlighted in the news) as a thrice-married serial philanderer. This certainly makes him an unlikely guide for a religious political movement whose leaders believe that the fate of America hinges on the health of heterosexual marriage. (His recent conversion to Catholicism not withstanding.)

…At this writing, details are still emerging, but the list of Religious Right leaders involved is impressive, and their intention to lead people from a state of fervent prayer to acquiring state power is unambiguous.

These events may fairly be seen in the context of the ongoing transition of the Religious Right as the founding generation of movement leaders passes from the scene. R.J. Rushdoony, Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, Bill Bright, and John Giminez (among others) have died. Pat Robertson, Don Wildmon, James Dobson, and Beverly LaHaye are in varying stages of passing the torch; and each of their designees are coalescing via Pray & Act, which in turn is appealing to and seeking to register young people to vote.

Clarkson's analysis of the deeper Dominionist and Christian Reconstructionist roots of this latest manifestation is troubling, not least because Lou Engle, who is kicking off the election-year festivities in Sacramento, has given tacit support to the execution of homosexuals in Uganda, among other extremist positions. The entire post is well worth reading. 

According to Strong, a strategist for former California gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner hired a blogger named Aaron Park as a "consultant," although Park did not disclose this fact at "Red County," the conservative blog he wrote for. Which was smart, considering Red County had, in fact, received $20,000 from the campaign of Poizner's opponent, Meg Whitman.

Apparently a number of small-market, barely read political blogs are seeking -- receiving -- extremely inflated sums of money for "advertising." But on the whole, the DC's article seems to be sexed up beyond the point of usefulness, as I have no idea how common the practice is or if it even happens outside of a few isolated incidents.

Meanwhile, someone working for Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott has alleged that Mike Huckabee offered to endorse Scott, if Scott gave Huckabee $250,000. Huckabee, obviously, denies the charge, which doesn't actually make that much sense. He has endorsed Scott's opponent, Bill McCollum.

For while Obama has avoided single-issue fights on issues such as gays in the military and federal funding of abortions — angering parts of his base, in the process — he has, in the minds of conservatives, pushed a comprehensive agenda, and that is far more threatening.

"His worldview is dramatically different than any president, Republican or Democrat, we've had," said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, who attributes conservative fear not just to Obama's effort to expand the federal government but to the president's overall governing philosophy.

The real problem, according to Huckabee, is that Obama "grew up more as a globalist than an American." Unlike all the other, truly American presidents, not counting FDR, who made frequent European trips as a child, Thomas Jefferson, who spent years in France, John Quincy Adams, who was schooled in France and the Netherlands, or Herbert Hoover, who as a young man was a mining engineer in Australia and China. Or, you know, any of the first seven presidents, who were all born British subjects.

But that aside, it's almost as if, in the absence of outrage over gays and fetuses, the organized right wing is just whipping up outrage over the fact that the president is a Democrat who supports Democratic policies!

Not that I'm saying that some substantial minority of Americans and even more substantial segment of the popular media refuses to recognize anyone besides right-wing Christian white Americans as truly American, but that is basically exactly what I'm saying and the insane response to a pragmatic moderate Democratic president has proved it.

Here's Mike teaching self-defense to ladies:

Here's Mike hanging out with a former Wall Street attorney who now makes -- can you believe it? -- manly cupcakes:

Did you know that your child can drown hours after getting out of the water? Mike Huckabee tells you what to look for:

And finally, in this clip, Mike chats with "Left Behind" author Tim LaHaye about how Barack Obama's socialism portends the biblical End Times:

Oh, sorry, that clip's from his weekly Fox News show, where Huckabee is able to occasionally remind the viewer that despite his charm and wit, he is a complete nut.

For once, though, conservatives are piling up on someone who really did cross some kind of line. Video recently emerged of veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas saying, at the White House Jewish Heritage celebration last month, that Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine," and that Jews should "go home ... to Poland and Germany."

At the first part of that -- getting the hell out of Palestine -- I was thinking, "You tell 'em, Helen." But you can see where it gets problematic. You don't have to believe in the mystical connection of Jews to the Holy Land or even the initial wisdom of the Zionist project to recognize that, by now, with their parents and grandparents buried there, this is home for Jewish Israelis.

At the same time, however, the gross second half of an 89-year-old's rant is now being used to discredit the perfectly reasonable idea that Israel should, indeed, get the hell out of the occupied territories. Here's Jay Nordlinger, writing at the National Review Online (NRO):

Over the years, however, I have watched anti-Semitism become less stigmatized and less stigmatized, less taboo and less taboo. Before we know it, it may even be cool. That is very bad news. This anti-Semitism usually expresses itself in the anti-Israel temper. But there's a difference between being against the Jews and being against Israel, right? Of course there is. But it's strange how the world works out -- how people work out. I quote Paul Johnson: "Scratch a person who is anti-Israel, and you won't have to dig very far before you reach the anti-Semite underneath."

(Nordlinger then goes on to suggest that historian Tony Judt offers a cautionary example of slippage from legitimate criticism of Israeli policies toward criticism of Israel itself, which is beyond the pale. Judt, of course, is the child of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe.)

Moreover, while they're busy wielding Thomas' statement like a club, conservatives are happily ignoring the fact that figures from their movement have made parallel comments, equally atrocious, about the Palestinians. And, unlike Thomas, they haven't even bothered to apologize.

Sarah Palin, for example, was quick to jump all over Thomas' comment. On Twitter, Palin wrote, "Helen Thomas press pals condone racist rant? Heaven forbid 'esteemed' press corps represent society's enlightened elite; Rest of us choose truth." (I've added some spaces in there to make it readable.) I'm not entirely sure what Palin means there, except that she's calling Thomas racist. Palin herself, however, has called for Israel to continue expanding settlement in Palestinian territory. This is, de facto, a call for Israel to deny the Palestinians a state, and eventually to expel them.

Then there's Mike Huckabee, who explicitly called for Israel to deport the Palestinians from the West Bank, so Israel could complete settling it. That's ethnic cleansing, folks. Scarcely a peep was to be heard from the right while major political figures like Huckabee and Palin -- not 89-year-old cranky columnists -- were calling for it.

Just moments ago, Jonah Goldberg wrote at NRO that the Thomas "scandal" isn't surprising at all, since everyone knows she's a "nasty piece of work" but liberals keep her around anyway:

Also, let's just get the liberal bias thing out of the way. If there was a rightwinger who'd spouted so much bile, hate and ideological agenda-driven nonsense in the White House briefing room for half a century it would be ... oh wait, no such person would have ever been allowed to become a Washington "institution" in the first place.

It's true. No conservative could ever have become a Washington institution similar to Thomas. Instead, the GOP would have seriously considered such a person to run the country, provided the right kind of racism was on display.

In other words, their problem with Thomas isn't that she’s in favor of uprooting an established ethnic community and shipping it out in the name of another group’s nationalist aspirations. She just chose the wrong group.

More to the point, smart Democrats understand that one of their chief liabilities right now figures to be an asset in 2012: the shape of the electorate. Turnout in midterm elections invariably skews toward older and whiter voters. Yet Obama’s 2008 performance varied inversely with age categories and also depended on a historic ethnic-minority turnout that isn’t about to be repeated in a midterm election. Add in the ripe targets, particularly in the House, created by two straight boffo Democratic cycles, and it should have been clear the very day after the 2008 elections that Democrats were cruising for a bruising in 2010 — even before the economy sank to its ultimate depths and well before the first Tea Party protest.

The 2012 electorate, by contrast, should look more like that of 2008. Not content with their midterm advantage, Republicans have done a lot to brand themselves as the party of angry old white people: the GOP’s conspicuous identification with the Tea Party movement, and the campaign to mobilize Medicare beneficiaries against healthcare reform are two examples. This will build a demographic trap for the GOP future, particularly since the radically conservative mood of the Republican base has eliminated any strategic flexibility to reach out to younger and darker (or female) voters.

After all, Karl Rove’s famous Bush-era initiatives to expand the GOP via comprehensive immigration reform (aimed at Latinos) and No Child Left Behind (aimed at women and African-Americans) are now part of the conservative narrative of “betrayal” that Republicans must now promise to foreswear forever.

But its demographic noose is less evident than an even bigger GOP problem for 2012: the party's likely presidential field. This is not something Republicans much like to talk about. When questioned about their uninspiring cast of would-be presidents, most mutter about “how early” it is and vaguely suggest there will be “fresh faces” who will somehow emerge from the midterm election cycle and sprint to the White House. Read this cranky statement from New York Times columnist David Brooks when challenged about the lack of leadership in the GOP:

Last week, everybody was talking about Palin and Newt Gingrich, the two television personalities, but real live Republicans are mounting serious challenges for office in real states. Representative Mark Kirk is running for Senate in Illinois, one of the smartest members of Congress today. Rob Portman, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget, is mounting a serious challenge for Senate in Ohio. There are few people as decent and well informed as he is. In California, business leaders Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are running pretty well in the polls. But nobody seems to cover them much because the Sarah Palin circus is perpetually in town.

Meanwhile, Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey has embarked on a brave effort to actually balance a budget.

Elsewhere in the same exchange with a wry Gail Collins, Brooks points to Mitch Daniels, John Kyl, Jeff Sessions, Lindsey Graham and Lamar Alexander as potential future stars.

As Brooks would probably admit if pressed, none of these people, with the possible (but still very unlikely) exception of Mitch Daniels, are going to be running for president in 2012.

And history suggests that it's already too late for someone new to emerge. It's been a very, very long time since anyone first won major statewide office in a midterm election and then immediately launched a credible run for the presidency. Yes, Ronald Reagan announced his presidential candidacy on the very eve of the 1968 Republican Convention in a half-hearted effort to deny Richard Nixon the nomination. And yes, in 1976 Jerry Brown had a meteoric late run that crashed and burned after a couple of primary wins. But that’s about it in recent history. Plus, the cost and difficulty of running a successful presidential campaign have increased almost exponentially since the '60s and '70s. Some like to point to the current resident of the White House as evidence that anything can happen, and happen fast, but Obama had already become a national political celebrity before he was elected to the Senate in 2004, four full years before his election to the presidency. If there’s an Obama lurking in the back benches of the Republican Senate Caucus these days, he or she has been well-hidden.

Republicans, like or not, are probably stuck with the presidential field they now have. And it’s not a pretty sight.

Polls now show three Republicans bunched at the front of the pack — Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. Romney is almost certainly running, but he failed to make an emotional connection with GOP voters in 2008. And doing so in 2012 will be even tougher, now that Romney is stuck trying to explain to Republicans the difference between Obamacare and the plan Romney imposed on Massachusetts.

Huckabee may or may not run. (Interestingly, he and his wife just registered to vote in Florida, a somewhat more important state in the presidential nomination process than his native Arkansas.) But he is viscerally disliked by GOP elites and conservative gabbers alike, and he is haunted by a gubernatorial record littered with tax hikes and pardons.

As for Palin — well, as Brooks says, she’s a circus. But if she runs, she'll win a lot of votes and suck up an extraordinary amount of grassroots enthusiasm, money and attention. She’s almost perfectly engineered to do well in the low-turnout Iowa caucuses, a state where conservatives are obsessed with opposing gay marriage (which was legalized in Iowa last year). But she almost certainly can’t win a general election in any political environment. That, not fear, is why Democrats love to talk about her, all but openly egging her on to run.

And then there’s Gingrich, whose prominence in the emerging 2012 field is the best example of how hard-up Republicans really are. This man managed to become a national pariah just months after becoming Speaker of the House in 1995. His disastrous strategy for dealing with Bill Clinton, from the government shutdown (which he is urging Republicans to emulate if they retake the House this year) to impeachment, was a textbook case of bad leadership and squandered political opportunity. He was unceremoniously dumped from office in 1998, and although he’s changed wives and religious affiliations since then, he’s pretty much the same ol’ Newt. This is a “fresh face?” One might as well ask Lamar (!) Alexander to dig the plaid shirt out of his closet and run for a third time.

Sure, there some dark horses. Tim Pawlenty has some insider support but no discernable rationale for a candidacy — and a personality that makes Mitch McConnell look charismatic. Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, a conservative favorite, could try to become the first sitting House member to win a presidential nomination since 1896. John Thune's main qualification seems to be that he looks very pretty on television. And then there's Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour — just in case Republicans want to nominate a former big-time professional lobbyist who also sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. Nor should we forget Rick Perry and Jim DeMint, who have made a recent habit of saying things that are every oppo researcher’s dream (for example, Perry’s flirtation with secession and DeMint’s contemptuous references to public schools as socialistic “government schools”). And Rick Santorum, whose early campaign has been little more than an extended apology to his fellow right-to-lifers for his 2004 endorsement of Arlen Specter. And finally, there’s Ron Paul, who if he runs, will definitely be a problem for any Republican rival who has to debate him, as he was in 2008 with his challenges to Republican foreign-policy orthodoxy.

Admit it, Republicans. This is a pretty weak field — and a perilous one. If anyone feels a sense of déjà vu, it’s because the field looks a lot like those of 1996 and 2008: some has-beens, some never-weres, some egomaniacs and some crazies. There may not even be a Bob Dole or a John McCain in this mix — the kind of candidate who can reassert adult control and at least lose gracefully in the general election.

So let Republicans enjoy their 2010 comeback. It was all but foreordained by the last two cycles, and by the very demographics that threaten the GOP in the long run. Allow them to celebrate their “fresh faces”; they'll have a lot of fine options for the vice-presidential nomination in 2012. But their 2012 prospects will go straight downhill starting on Nov. 3, 2010. That's when Republicans will have to start to deal with the consequences of their recent bout of self-indulgent destructiveness, when they'll begin choosing someone to take on Barack Obama not in press conferences or talking points or Tea Party protests, but in a presidential election.