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TechnoratiMany evangelical leaders said McCain helped himself with a solid performance at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, where McCain proclaimed, "I will be a pro-life president."
Mark Silk, who specializes in religion and politics at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., cautioned that while evangelical leaders are praising the Palin pick, it might not necessarily trickle down.
"The question is how this will be received by a lot of rank-and-file evangelicals who are just Americans struggling along, going to their megachurches, and care about values," Silk said.
Some question whether old-guard traditional leaders, like Dobson, hold as much influence as in the past. The evangelical establishment never warmed to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's candidacy, but grass-roots evangelicals contributed to his big win in the Iowa primaries.
Evangelical leaders got worried when McCain floated the possibility of a vice presidential candidate who supports abortion rights, including Sen. Joe Lieberman or former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge.
By choosing Palin, "McCain is saying to social and religious conservatives, 'I'm taking your views incredibly seriously,'" said Michael Cromartie, director of the evangelical studies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.
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AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll contributed to this report.
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