Moderate Republicans, you're not Republicans anymore!

"If they can't agree and support the president and the platform, then they ought to go over to the Democrats," said Jan LaRue, chief counsel for the conservative group Concerned Women for America.

If there was any doubt that the cultural conservative Radical Christians had taken over the Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower, those doubts have been put to rest, Conservatives to GOP moderates: Get out of our party.

A win doesn't mean that all is well in the Republican Party.

Though their candidate came out ahead on Nov. 2, some moderate Republicans are as despondent as Democrats. While Christian conservatives have been credited with turning out like-minded voters in crucial swing states, many moderates say they have been marginalized.

"There is no future for moderate and progressive Republicans in the Republican Party," said Jim Scarantino, president of the centrist GOP group Mainstream 2004. "The far right wing and the fanatics have seized control."

Mr. Scarantino isn't sure where his brand of Republican politics fits into the GOP. Some Christian conservatives say it doesn't.

So what about the moderates that were on the stage at the Republican convention?

While big-name moderates such as John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudolph Giuliani took the stage in New York, conservatives controlled the party platform.

"The party has ruthlessly exploited moderate Republicans," Mr. Scarantino said. "I think they're deluding themselves thinking they're ever going to get anything more than the opportunity to be on the stage."

But will the flat earth Christians get everything they want?

Some moderates remain optimistic, predicting that the president will take a measured approach, striking a balance by doing just enough to satisfy evangelicals without raising the ire of other groups.

The Bush administration "wants to have a positive legacy," said Ann Stone, chairwoman of Republicans for Choice. "They're going to figure out what they can give these guys that's not going to alienate everybody else."

Political scientist John Green said that the president and his allies are adept at counting votes.

"Evangelicals and other conservative Christians were clearly an important part of that coalition, but they were not the only people in the coalition," said Dr. Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. Mr. Bush "needs the support of all the Republicans in the coalition to get his agenda passed."

But the cultural conservatives are not going to compromise.

After laboring behind the scenes for years, conservatives are front and center. And they want the president to move quickly to address their agenda.

The to-do list includes defending traditional marriage, banning human cloning, reforming Social Security, passing more-restrictive abortion laws and stepping up enforcement of obscenity laws, said Ms. LaRue of Concerned Women for America.

And if moderates don't agree with those objectives, perhaps they don't belong in the GOP, she said.

Ms. LaRue calls Mr. Specter a RINO – Republican In Name Only – and questions why politicians such as Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island remain in the Republican Party when they didn't even vote for Mr. Bush.

"Get real," she said. "These are Democrats in Republican clothing."

It would appear that the evil "liberals" have been joined by the equally evil "moderates" in the eyes of the Republican Party.