Mobilization matters, but it matters far less than the Christian Right Thesis and the Secular Backlash Thesis allege. In fact, in the last chapter, mobilization contributed very little to the rise of Evangelical activists on the Republican side or to the rise of Secular activists on the Democratic side. Despite popular and scholarly attention to the mobilization efforts of the Christian Right and a backlash among Seculars, mobilization appears to have played a larger role among the groups that make up the Christian Left. That said, the long-term trends may obscure more recent mobilization among two Christian Right groups, Evangelical Republicans and Catholic Republicans. Perspective matters and one of the reasons others find that mobilization matters is, undoubtedly, a function of having focused on shorter-term changes. Nevertheless, recent gains in Evangelical campaign participation on the Republican side represent a return to 1960s levels, not record highs. Also, it is curious that activism among Evangelical Republicans remained flat during the George W. Bush presidential elections (see Figure 7.1.A) given the lore that Karl Rove and Christian Right organizations were exceptionally active in those elections. More to the point, pinpointing exactly how much and when mobilization matters is ultimately less important than establishing that other factors matter, such as basic demographic changes. The bigger point is that mobilization is only one of several factors that shape the activist pools.

Toward that end the previous four chapters have undertaken detailed analyses of several forces with potential to shape the composition of the activist pools. Especially when it comes to understanding long-term change in the activist pools, the evidence speaks loudly on the question of whether other factors matter and reveals that basic demographic changes dominate in many cases. This chapter is different, focusing instead on the implications of the representation-based approach for understanding change among activists in contrast to the implications of the mobilization-centric approaches.