What a blast from the past that Fort Worth evangelist James Robison and 80 of his best buds are trying to get it up for Rick Perry, the Texas guv they’d like to be the Ronald Reagan of 2012. But partying like it’s 1980–when the National Affairs Briefing ushered in the national Religious Right and a generation of faith-based Republicanism–may not come so easily for the Robison posse.

The enterprise smacks of gender resentment: good ol’ boys mighty pissed off that the likes of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann have been kicking male evangelical butt all over the countryside. If weak-chinned Pawlenty can’t do it, then it’s got to be jut-jawed Perry riding out of the West. Yee-haw!

Meanwhile, though, said Bachmann is running neck and neck with Mitt Romney in Iowa, establishing herself as a solid number two in New Hampshire, and piling up the name-recognition points. Don’t expect these lady politicians to let themselves be ruled by a bunch of old peckerwoods. It ain’t your granddaddy’s Religious Right no more.