Dobson's dilemma

Will dismissing GOP frontrunners Giuliani and McCain as unacceptable presidential candidates and getting involved in a series of squabbles with fellow conservative evangelicals, diminish the power of Focus on the Family founder?

With the Rev. Jerry Falwell gone; Coral Ridge Ministries' D. James Kennedy seriously ill, the Rev. Pat Robertson in a perpetual state of hoof-and-mouth disease -- although still raking in handsome amounts of dough -- Ralph Reed tainted by the Abramoff Scandal, and Pastor Ted Haggard just plain tainted, it appears that the time is ripe for Focus on the Family founder and Christian radio psychologist Dr. James Dobson, to crank up what blogger Richard Rothstein has termed his "vast bigotry-based political machine" and seize the religious right's center stage. Or has Dobson, who has gotten himself embroiled in a series of conflicts with fellow evangelicals, missed his moment?