The rise of a new conservative grass roots fueled by a secular revulsion at government spending is stirring fears among leaders of the old conservative grass roots, the evangelical Christian right.

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A prominent Atlanta evangelical public relations man, Mark DeMoss, recently wrote Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to denounce as “shameful” a fundraising presentation obtained by POLITICO that advised appealing to “fear” and portrayed Obama as the sinister Joker from Batman, over the word “Socialism” — an image drawn from a poster popular at tea party events.

Land said liberals can be equally faulted for demonizing Sarah Palin, but said that if he were an RNC donor, he’d stop giving.

“What [liberal blogs] do with Sarah is just really unacceptable and dastardly, but that doesn’t mean we should respond in kind,” he said. Obama, he said “provides a tremendously positive role model for tens of millions of African-American men” and “seems demonstrably fond of his wife and children, which is a positive role model for people of all ethnicities.”

“I would want to be free to attack the character of President Clinton — but this guy, he gives every indication of being a decent guy,” Land said.

Worries about being out of step with the rest of the conservative movement surfaced most visibly last month in Washington during the Conservative Political Action Conference, which invited the gay Republican group GOProud to be a co-sponsor, and where one audience booed a speaker who criticized that decision.

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee denounced the conference (with whose organizers he has feuded in the past) as a gathering that had become “increasingly more libertarian and less Republican.”

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