I’m hearing you say it is assumed all candidates speak to heads of denominations and para-church organizations in the course of a run and there is no courtesy extended.
The conversations would be assumed public and on-record.

I’ve missed reading anything from the NCC or the NEA or the UUC, UMC, RC’s Lutherans, Episcopalians and Presbyterian leaders who may have gone to the media with their conversations with candidates. Or Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Hindu Buddhist etc.:^)

Page didn’t elaborate on his chats with McCain or Huckabeee.
Not a peep about responses from other Republicans were leaked.

Nothing from any of his possible conversations with Democratic candidates.

You make a fair point, if there were other people in the room expectation of courtesy and privacy is off the floor.

Frank Page basically told 6 million SBC that Guiliani was not ‘one of us’.

That comes across as most decidedly self-serving especially since the conversation was in June and key SBC key leaders are in Washington mingling with GOP candidates in the FRC shindig. 
Bon timing, oui?

By your reasoning Huckabee wouldn’t care if Page got as much mileage out of a chat with him as possible.
Haven’t seen that happening.

It’s interesting you frame this as enthusiastic evangelism.
That still makes it self-serving.
Page is saying to his denomination through religious media, look at me, I evangelize presidential candidates.

Hypothetical: Page meets with 10 politicans separately. 4 pray the SBC sinners prayer with him. Does Page tell the media politicans/candidates 1 to 4 are now born again and ‘one of us’? That would be unscriptural.

I wouldn’t use tacky. Unethical works just fine.

However, this wasn’t a visit to Page as a minister, but as the leader of a big voting block that Guiliani wanted to court. I don’t think there was any pastor-parishioner privilege or an implicit assumption that everything said was off the record.

A bit tacky? Yes. The Baptist enthusiasm for evangelism can seem tacky to the outsider, and hitting up a visiting pol with a sales pitch for Jesus was a bit over the top.

Unethical? Only if one assumes that the conversation was understood to be private and off the record. If I hear where it was so, I’ll back you up on your statement.

Otherwise, talking to the head of a big denomination to sway votes would require the head honcho to tell of his talk with the politico. I don’t see the implied privacy; if I were talking to him while running for office, I’d expect some of our conversation to become public.