BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now, our conversation about the role of religion in the presidential campaigns. Joining me is our managing editor Kim Lawton, who has been reporting on religion and politics this season, and E.J. Dionne, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the newly published book SOULED OUT: RECLAIMING FAITH AND POLITICS AFTER THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT. Kim, E.J., welcome.

E.J. DIONNE (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and Author, SOULED OUT): Good to be here.

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: E.J., in your book you speak about a broadening of the interest of religious conservatives. How is that showing up in the campaign?

Mr. DIONNE: Well, you know, what you saw this year is that religion is still important, but in very different ways than in recent elections. In particular, with Mike Huckabee what you saw is a candidate who, as Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical magazine noted, got a lot of evangelical votes without the support of the old religious right leaders -- that the evangelical vote splintered. And what you're seeing is, among religious voters, including evangelicals, is a much broader range of interest. You know, they're talking a lot about poverty, about the environment. And Mike Huckabee represented some of that, because his campaign was not just about the traditional conservative evangelical issues, though it was, such as abortion, he also talked a lot about poverty, about education, about health care, and he did exceptionally well among younger evangelicals, and I think younger evangelicals are at the sort of forefront of this shift to a broader agenda.

LAWTON: But I'm interested as to how many evangelicals are part of that wing. Certainly there are a lot of high profile people who are doing what you're describing. But, you know, what about at the grassroots? How many of them are still those conservatives that you saw, but just with a different reorganization? I think that's happening. The Republican Party is having a harder time holding onto the social conservatives, the military conservatives, the foreign policy and the economic conservatives all in one coalition, and, you know, part of it I saw with this week James Dobson finally made an endorsement of Mike Huckabee, and he waited until this week to do it after Mitt Romney had pulled out of the race. And I'm sure a lot of Huckabee campaign people are saying thanks for nothing. Where were you right before South Carolina? He still has influence. Those conservative traditionals, social conservatives, are still important for the Republicans.

ABERNETHY: And listening to the speakers, especially Huckabee and Obama, you'd almost think you were in church -- the language used, and especially the cadences, the style of it.

Mr. DIONNE: Well, of course, Huckabee himself is a preacher, and he's a good preacher, and you hear that all the time. What's really striking is that Barack Obama is a revivalist. His campaign is a kind of salvation show. And the whole end of his standard stump speech is a kind of poem to hope, and that could easily fit into a church. And I think you're seeing on the Democratic side a very different approach than in the past. I mean, you have two very good people doing religious outreach -- Burns Strider for Clinton and Joshua DuBois for Obama. They're doing a lot of work with the religious community. And you have two candidates in Clinton and Obama who are religiously literate, who really care about this. They don't have to fake it when they talk about religion. And this very odd thing happened where the Democratic National Committee complained to the people doing the exit polls that they weren't asking Democrats if they were evangelicals or not, and their point is there are a lot of evangelical Democrats. You never would have heard the Democratic National Committee even thinking about such a complaint four, eight, 10 years ago.

ABERNETHY: How did Romney's Mormonism play in this? Did it help him? Did it hurt him? What do you think?

Ms. LAWTON: I think it didn't help him. I don't think it was the only reason that his candidacy never really took off. But I think it didn't help him among some communities. Just like there are people who are unwilling, were unwilling, to vote for Mike Huckabee because he was a Southern Baptist, I do think there are Americans who were unwilling to vote for him because of his Mormon faith. But it did generate a really interesting conversation about, you know, a religious test for public office and to what extent Americans are concerned about what their president may or may not believe.

Mr. DIONNE: I was really struck on Super Tuesday when you saw the returns come in, particularly from the southern states where the Republican vote is heavily evangelical, going to Huckabee, not Romney, and it made you think there really may have been some evangelicals who were pulled back from, or pushed back from Romney on the Mormon question. And honestly I hope somebody studies this because I think it's going to be important to figure out what role did that really play. It wasn't talked about a lot. It just may have been there.

Ms. LAWTON: And there were evangelicals who did support him, and I think it became less of an issue for him as the race went on, so that may position things in the future differently.

ABERNETHY: Kim, E.J., many thanks to each of you.

Mr. DIONNE: Thank you.