James Dobson of Focus on the Family has an op-ed in The New York Times.
The Values Test

He is addressing the fallout of another leaked secret meeting of The Council on National Policy held in Utah September 29th.

Like others of the Religious Right, as well as Republican social and economic converatives such as Richard Viguerie, Dobson attempts to clarify. His main points are:

If neither of the two major political parties nominates an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life, we will join others in voting for a minor-party candidate. Those agreeing with the proposition were invited to stand. The result was almost unanimous.

His next point:

I firmly believe that the selection of a president should begin with a recommitment to traditional moral values and beliefs. Those include the sanctity of human life, the institution of marriage, and other inviolable pro-family principles.

He is correct on this point - polls don’t measure the plurality of the needs of a populace well.

The other approach, which I find problematic, is to choose a candidate according to the likelihood of electoral success or failure. Polls don’t measure right and wrong; voting according to the possibility of winning or losing can lead directly to the compromise of one’s principles.

And his final point:

The secular news media has been reporting in recent months that the conservative Christian movement is hopelessly fractured and internally antagonistic.

The Council for National Policy - who are they?

Giuliani Dismisses Conservative Threat

Deverger’s Law - two party systems

There are third parties: The Constitution Party is present in 41 states. President James Clymer was at the Utah meeting.

Dobson claims Unity - People for the American Way
Third Parties and Institutional Power:

In the unlikely, but not impossible, event of an eventual break with the Republican coalition in the Presidential election, it will be primarily because Dobson et all believe both that their own power at the head of these social conservative institutions are endangered by the support of a (now only semi-) pro-choice nominee like Giulian. In that scenario, they will bank upon either the institutions of the conservative movement being powerful enough to temporarily thrive on their own without the institution of the Republican Party, or that the Republican Party will fare so poorly without them that it will beg for their return on bended knee. It would, in a sense, be a strike against the Republican Party. It would be a withdrawal of support and labor until either a new covenant was forged with the larger coalition that would be more preferable to social conservatives, or until the collapse of the power of the social conservative institutions conducting the strike. While conservatives never tried this before, Progressives utterly failed to show this strength in the splits of 1948 and 2000, and thus ended up in a worse position in the party than before the strike. It would certainly be interesting to see if the institutions of the conservative movement really are so developed that they would be able to force a different outcome.

Update: Another Canadian blogger following Dobson, the Council on National Policy and the Republicans is unrepentant old hipple
Jordon Cooper:

• What is it that Democrats see in Hillary Clinton? If she wins the primary, she will will unite the Republicans in a way that James Dobson could only dream of. Speaking of the religious right, I wonder what would happen if a strong evangelical presidential candidate who shared their values and happened to be a Democrat ran for President (you know, like Jimmy Carter). Would they acknowledge his or her existence or campaign against them because they are nothing more than a tool of the GOP.