From “Fundamentalism Spring Eternal for GOP,” at Washington Post by The Revealer founding editor, Jeff Sharlet:

Social conservatives, particularly of the Protestant variety, want out of 2012 what they’ve wanted since H.L. Mencken handed them a shellacking at the Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925: respectability. Christian conservatives have either dominated American politics or shouted loudest in opposition for three decades, but the movement’s inferiority complex runs deep. Eighteen years after the fact, fundamentalist pundits still cite a description of fundamentalists in The Washington Post as “largely poor, uneducated, and easily led.”That the characterization is snobby — and inaccurate. It’s also old. But as a movement, these religious social conservatives can’t seem to win enough validation – also known as power – to make them feel better. Exhibit A: The sense of wounded grievance fueling Michele Bachmann’s campaign.