Elephant in the room

What do evangelical voters want? At the Washington summit religious right voters focused on front-runners who lack their core values while a loyal backfield gathers momentum | Jamie Dean

The confrontation at the top of the escalator in the Hilton Hotel was sudden and tense. Clad in black boots and a black "Mitt Romney" cap, Nancy French busily handed out buttons and pamphlets advertising "Evangelicals for Mitt."

French was one of nearly 2,000 evangelicals and conservatives who gathered in Washington, D.C., late last month for the Values Voter Summit sponsored by the Family Research Council (FRC).

All nine Republican presidential hopefuls spoke at the three-day conference, vying for the support of evangelicals at a crucial time for GOP candidates, who court the movement's endorsement, and for the religious right itself, struggling to maintain its relevance in a fractured GOP field.