Tom Turnipseed, my good friend and future United States Senator from South Carolina, sent me an e-mail this morning about Senator Lindsey Graham, who has been twisting a lot of far-right evangelical arms in South Carolina for his “Surge” buddy, John McCain. The response among evangelicals has been, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. So McCain has broken out the old “consultant” (wink, wink) checkbook and is flat-out trying to buy the wingnut vote.

This is how the sham shakes out: Huck’s ally, State Senator Mike Fair is the godbag-wingnut mouthpiece for Bob Jones University. The McCain Campaign has “retained” Senator Fair as a “get-out-the-vote consultant,” paying him $21,000 ($7000 a month) since January. Fair’s godbag counterpart in the State House is Representative Gloria Haskins. McCain has “retained” her son, Bryan Haskins to the tune of $6500 over the last three months as a “youth campaign coordinator.” And they have paid Stan Spears Jr., son of Adjutant General Stan Spears, more than $5,000 as “veterans coordinator.” Hmmmmmm…and double hmmmmmmmm.

But it really doesn’t matter how much money they dole out in bribes (retainers?) to godbag-connected politicians and their relatives; Lindsey will not be able to deliver. Most evangelicals just won’t buy McCain. They don’t trust him as far as they can throw him on their core issues. They will go for Romney, Brownback, Huckabee, Thompson—I don’t know who—but it will be anybody but McCain.

The same is true on the Democratic side. State Senator Daryl Jackson, the Preacher/Consultant on the Clinton payroll ($10,000 a month) won’t fare any better. Hillary can pay him a retainer until the cows come home. The minority vote will be split all up and down the line— Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Biden and Dodd will all get respectable slices of that primary pie.