BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now, election analysis and comment from three close observers of religion and politics. John Green is a fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and a political scientist at the University of Akron. Michael Cromartie is vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. E.J. Dionne is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a columnist for THE WASHINGTON POST. Welcome to you all. E.J., give us a headline. What happened?

E.J. DIONNE (Columnist, THE WASHINGTON POST and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution): Iraq overwhelmed all other issues in the campaign, and if there was a central moral issue, it was almost certainly corruption.

ABERNETHY: Michael?

MICHAEL CROMARTIE (Vice President, Ethics and Public Policy Center): Yes, I agree with E.J. One of the issues was corruption. One of the things I was most surprised about though, Bob, was how many of the Republicans didn't vote Republican. They got the vote out, but when they got to the poll, they were pretty upset with the GOP.

ABERNETHY: And John, how did we vote, especially the religious communities?

JOHN C. GREEN (Political Scientist, University of Akron and Senior Fellow in Religion and American Politics, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life): Yeah, let's talk about the major religious communities and what they did. One interesting thing was the Democrats got a majority of the Catholic vote, which hasn't happened for a while in national elections. There was a lot of concern about the religious right, how evangelicals would vote, and they actually turned out in fairly large numbers and voted solidly Republican -- about 70 percent. Democrats made a few gains there, but [it] still stayed pretty Republican. The nonaffiliated people -- a very special kind of religious group, the nonreligious -- turned out in large numbers, and they voted more Democratic than they usually do. And then, some of the other groups voted pretty much the way they have typically: Jews, Democratic; black Protestants, Democratic; a little bit of drift towards the Democrats among other white Protestants, mainline Protestants and so forth. So the usual pattern, but with some gains on the Democratic side.

ABERNETHY: Did you all see any pattern in the ballot measures and how the ballot measures in various states came out? E.J.?

Mr. DIONNE: Well, I think you saw gay marriage once again -- measures against gay marriage pass. But I thought it was interesting that the margin was relatively narrow in some places, and one of them actually went down in Arizona, which I think is surprising. The defeat of the abortion bill, the bill banning abortion in South Dakota, I think, is very important. Clearly, that bill was drawn to broadly, and I think it's very significant that the pro-choice movement instead of taking that to court went to the voters instead and asked the voters for their opinion. And I think that's important for the long haul, because I think a lot of the resentment among conservatives against Roe v. Wade comes from the fact that it was imposed by the courts. This time, the pro-choice movement made their case to the people and won.

ABERNETHY: Michael, what does the takeover in both the House and the Senate say about the present and future power and influence in Washington politics of the religious right?

Mr. CROMARTIE: Well, one thing the Republicans should not take from this is that they think that the moral value voters have abandoned them totally. The fact of the matter is, as E.J. just mentioned, seven out of eight amendments for traditional marriage passed. Now, the moral value voters did vote Republican. The ones that didn't, however, were disgusted not so much with President Bush, but with Congress. I am surprised, Bob, a week or two before going into the election, how many conservatives I met that said, "If we lose, we deserve it." And then post the election, how many have said, "We got what we deserved." You don't hear people saying, "We were robbed. There were bad ballots. It was bad voting behavior." No, they said we got what we deserved. I think that's very interesting.

ABERNETHY: But what about the power of the organized - the political power of the leaders of the religious right? Is that still what it used to be?

Mr. CROMARTIE: Well, I think so. I mean, I think John Green can confirm with us what the data is. But the fact of the matter is they got out the vote and they are concerned about the future Supreme Court and they are concerned about moral and social conservative issues. But it wasn't enough to carry this election.

Prof. GREEN: But, you know, having said that, there are some real disappointments in the election returns for religious conservatives. Some of their real champions in Congress, people like Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Congressman Jim Ryan from Kansas were defeated, so some of their champions won't be there in the new Congress.

Mr. DIONNE: And I think there's an interesting flipside to this, which is after 2004, religiously oriented Democrats and liberals said, "Well, my word, we better start organizing too." And you saw Democratic candidates being -- who were people of faith -- being much more explicit about it. One of the stunning cases was Ted Strickland running against Ken Blackwell for governor of Ohio. Ken Blackwell had counted -- this very religious person, a Pentecostal -- had counted on a strong religious vote. But Ted Strickland is a Methodist minister.