But what if that person who's "starting at the wrong place" (meaning has a different faith than you do) makes better decisions, and, just coincidentally, makes decisions that fall more in line with your beliefs than the guy who supposedly follows your faith?
Well, let me clarify a bit. "starting at the right place" doesn't mean to me "an Evangelical Christian," though that does help. In fact I could easily vote for an atheist if his or her moral compass seemed to align with mine. So far, from what I've seen, none of the Democratic players’ do.
As a hypothetical exercise, let's say a Jewish Republican candidate emerged, whose political platform, decision-making, etc. matched up with what you think is right. Wouldn't you vote for that guy instead of Bush, whom you acknowledge as falling short on many of his decisions?
Absolutely. Even if the guy was a Democrat, actually.

In case you can’t tell, I’m not a huge Bush supporter (though I was at one time). I just happen to think that he’s more likely to govern the country the way I’d want than any of the other choices available. I think this because of his religious persuasion and the fact that what I’ve read of the other’s indicates they’d support things to which I’m firmly opposed.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.