Evangelical Crackup? What Happened to the Theocracy?

Lots of folks are talking/blogging about “The Evangelical Crackup,”a lengthy report in the NY Times’ Sunday magazine. David Kirkpatrick says that the looming 2008 election is exposing a lot of turmoil among evangelicals who can no longer be rallied to Republican candidates through a few hot button issues. I’ve read worthwhile analysis of the piece from GetReligion, the Revealer, the Beliefnet mashup Casting Stones, and Austin’s Eileen Flynn.

Here’s my question: what does this do to the Left’s favorite fable, spun after the 2004 elections, that evangelicals are a voting hegemony gunning for a Jesusland theocracy? Up until the Crackup piece this Sunday, the too-typical angle taken by the Times was that evangelicals were a united political force walking in lockstep conformity to the Republican Party. Consider the review of Kevin Philips jeremiad, American Theocracy, by Alan Brinkley:

The political rise of evangelical Christian groups is hardly a secret to most Americans after the 2004 election, but Phillips brings together an enormous range of information from scholars and journalists and presents a remarkably comprehensive and chilling picture of the goals and achievements of the religious right.

Br-r-r! It’s a nice ghost story. But after Kirkpatrick's piece this past Sunday, how will the Left give each other goosebumps on Halloween?