"A significant number of evangelicals have decided they'd prefer not to vote for a Republican in this election cycle," Dean added. "The issue now is to make them comfortable with voting for Democrats. That's basically our job over the next five weeks."

Yet a chorus of evangelical "pro family" groups, including such major players as the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, and the American Family Association, while roundly criticizing Foley's conduct and raising questions about whether the case was properly handled by the Congress, has declined to lay blame at the feet of the House Republican leadership. In fact, most Christian right groups this week were at least tacitly defending House Speaker Dennis Hastert as some prominent conservatives and the Washington Times editorial page called for his resignation.

"Voters of faith are very sophisticated," former Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed told U.S. News this week. "They can make a distinction between an individual's moral failure and a systematic failure on the part of the Republican Congress. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Republican leadership was aware of this sexually explicit communication."

With regard to the Democrats, a handful of conservative Christian groups and activists used the scandal to contrast the swift resignation of the Republican Foley, after his explicit E-mails were made public late last week, with the conduct of Democratic lawmakers implicated in sex scandals, including former Rep. Gerry Studds and Rep. Barney Frank, both of whom continued to serve in the House after their scandals had passed.

Many Christian right groups went much further, blaming the liberal values of tolerance, diversity, and acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle for creating the atmosphere that allowed Foley's behavior.

"One issue that has sent the left into a tizzy is the point I made about the link between male homosexuality and child sexual abuse," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in an E-mail to supporters yesterday. "We should step back and look at what we've become as a nation as tolerance and diversity have been made the guideposts for public life. Our children are not even safe in the midst of some of our nation's leaders."

All of which raises the question of whether white evangelicals and other so-called values voters really will tell Republican candidates "no, thanks" at the polls next month. There is little doubt that the evangelical base is demoralized. The Foley scandal "is a betrayal of the public trust," says Russell Johnson, a prominent evangelical pastor in Ohio who leads a statewide network of 1,700 politically active pastors and church leaders.

"We're finding more skepticism and more malaise at a time when we need people to care about the process instead of being cynical."

So the key to next month's values vote may be whether in-the-pews evangelicals and other conservative churchgoers take their cues from the pro-GOP Christian right leadership or not. Pollster John Zogby says his surveys show white evangelicals breaking Republican by about 52 percent in the midterms, down a whopping 20 points from his 2004 polls. The rest of the evangelical demographic could back Democrats, or those voters might stay home. Neither option is good for the GOP.