Republican Faithful Await a Savior in Iowa

Cargin was among the 25 men who came by the Living Center for the weekly fellowship lunch in a converted old brick funeral home. The Wells family -- owners of the $1 billion dairy business -- fund the center, and lunches are put together by the company's new CEO, Mike Wells.

Wells is a Huckabee supporter, but on this day he addresses the conundrum for those who are trying to grasp their role in the process, urging his fellow Christians not to put their faith and trust in any one man. The group, which included blue-collar workers and sheriffs, bankers and social workers, agreed to talk openly about their preferences and their disillusionment.

"How many of you are disgusted with politics?" asks Bob Vander Plaats, another Huckabee man and a lunch regular.

All hands shoot up.

"We don't attend political meetings to find out what's going on in the community," bemoaned Gordon Greene, a county supervisor. "It's extremely disturbing that people don't even take enough interest in their local government . . . "

"Part of the disheartening feeling I have is not just the lack of the ideal candidate, but the optimistic views of the other side, the Democrats' view of their prospects," added Gene Johnson, a Wells employee.

They pledge to vote in the general election even if they skip the caucuses and are resigned to the fact that they may have to vote for -- in their words -- "the lesser of two evils."

"I say we have to go vote because if we don't vote, then all the women will vote and we'll have a woman in the White House and then we got problems," bellows Larry Timmons, who is in the construction business, from the back of the room. This gets a huge laugh. But he's serious.

"God," he notes, "did not plan for a woman to run everything."

Political experts have been perplexed that the evangelical community hasn't rallied sooner and in greater force for Huckabee. "My sense is that the rank and file on the religious right are waiting for cues from identifiable leaders like James Dobson or Tony Perkins," says Cary Covington, associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa.

But beyond the horse race, beyond the fact that Iowa is a late-deciding state, the mood among many evangelicals here reflects what is happening nationally, as Christian conservatives grapple with apathy and evaluate whether they should count on the government to legislate morality. Down the highway in Sioux City, home to nearly 300 Christian churches, Jeff Moes, a soft-spoken, 44-year-old senior pastor, is one of those who has nudged his congregation into a "new vision" of the process. "I am hearing 'what difference does it make?' " he says. "They are less and less trusting of government."

Moes says he tell his 1,000 congregants that the church is the institution with responsibility to effect change in the community. "We can't rely on one man or the government any longer," he says.