Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has received a powerful shot in the arm as top US evangelical leaders endorsed his White House bid ahead of a crucial South Carolina primary.

The endorsement came after about 150 influential Christian conservative leaders met at a ranch outside of Houston, Texas, in hopes of rallying their forces around one candidate before the January 21 vote in the state where evangelicals and social conservatives make up 60 percent of the Republican electorate.

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Conservative luminaries led by anti-abortion rights activist Phyllis Schlafly and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist last Thursday penned a decidedly anti-Net Neutrality open letter to Members of Congress, in which they warned that the new regulations proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would curb innovation and severely limit the ability of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to prioritize valuable content over otherwise objectionable and obscene material.

“There is no evidence of a market failure to justify the burdensome government regulations some are proposing,” the letter read. “Unfortunately, it appears that a few FCC commissioners lack an understanding of how regulations affect investment.”

Proponents of the FCC’s proposed broadband rules note that the issue of Net Neutrality is one in which conservatives are purportedly split. The Christian Coalition of America, a social conservative advocacy group, endorsed the Left’s overtures at re-regulating the Internet.  Likewise, Gun Owners of America have also voiced support for the controversial policy.

But last week’s letter–whose signatories include the likes of American Family Association President Tim Wildmon, Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council, prominent Catholic Deal Hudson and Mrs. Schlafly–suggest the Right, as a virtually unified whole, has turned a page in the debate over a dynamic Internet, and now is staunchly and almost uniformly opposed to what some critics call “a government takeover of the Internet.”

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Many conservative politicians, radio hosts, and pundits have repeatedly stated their shared belief that the Republican Party “lost its way” prior to the 2008 election.  In their minds, the entire conservative movement believed in limited government and low spending and was simply corrupted by absolute power.  They may be surprised to learn that this is not the case at all.  The fact that party leadership turned its back on limited government and low spending was entirely predictable.  In fact, it should have been expected.

The conservative movement is not homogeneous.  Rather, the movement consists of fiscal conservatives, limited government conservatives, libertarians, pro-business conservatives, social conservatives, neoconservatives, and others.  When Democrats control government, these disparate conservative groups share many common goals. They all wish to reduce the power of government and they all wish to reduce taxes and spending.  As a result, they usually form a very effective alliance while out of power.

We saw this in 1993 and 1994.  Conservatives rallied around core beliefs like limited government, term limits, Second Amendment rights, and low taxes.  Party leadership rolled out the Contract with America to universal conservative acclaim.  Conservatives all rallied around statements like, “guns don’t kill people…people kill people,” while GOP candidates gladly signed term limit pledges and Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge.  United, the GOP won control of the House and the Senate in 1994, and later won the presidency in 2000.

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