By Peggy Fikac, Austin Bureau

AUSTIN — Fueled by prayer and passionate speeches, Christian conservative leaders meeting in Gov. Rick Perry’s home state reached a “strong consensus” to support former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum for the GOP presidential nomination, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said Saturday.

Perkins, speaking for the roughly 150 people from around the country who met in the Brenham area Friday and Saturday, said the group was driven by the desire to oust President Barack Obama.

Their focus was “who they felt best represented the conservative movement and who they believed had the best chance of succeeding,” Perkins said in a conference call with reporters.

The key issues for those attending, he said, were the repeal of the federal health care law; addressing the national debt and deficit; and anti-abortion and family issues.

Participants prayed and heard “passionate speeches” on behalf of various candidates, Perkins said. Each campaign, with the exception of Jon Huntsman’s, had a surrogate there to speak.

Consensus emerged on Santorum after three rounds of balloting, Perkins said. He said the final ballot came down to Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with Perry eliminated after the first ballot. With 114 people voting on the final ballot, Santorum got 89 votes and Gingrich got 25. The group did not ask either Gingrich or Perry to drop out.

Patrick about Perry

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, who attended the meeting, said, “We spent a lot of time on our knees in prayer, asking for wisdom and guidance.”

“I still believe Rick Perry would make a great president, and so I am still supporting Governor Perry. But if for some reason he is not able to be successful, the group has spoken clearly about where the Christian community would stand,” Patrick said.

The conservatives’ backing should mean public endorsements, fundraising support and work by political activists for Santorum, Perkins said. He said, however, that some who previously supported another candidate may continue to do so. He brushed aside the idea that the endorsement is coming too late, saying with the South Carolina primary vote looming, “This could be exactly the right time.”

The meeting was organized in an effort to avoid a repeat of 2008, when Christian conservatives didn’t coalesce around a candidate and U.S. Sen. John McCain was nominated by Republicans and lost, Perkins said.

The conservatives’ decision actually could help GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

“This may boost Santorum some, but probably it also helps Romney by dividing conservatives further,” Sabato said. “Perry is the big loser here. He … needed the boost the evangelical conservatives could have provided. I suspect he’ll be back full-time in Austin before too long.”

Perry, who met with many of the conservative leaders last August at backer Jim Leininger’s Fredericksburg-area ranch, “fits the bill” for those at the meeting as far as his record and platform, Perkins said. But his missteps ended up being too troublesome.

“There was some concern because of the … stumbles that he had getting into the race, that those were just going to be too hard to overcome,” Perkins said.

Meeting’s leadership

Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan, said, “Rick Perry is the most successful and consistent social, fiscal and tea party conservative in the race for the White House. He is taking that conservative record and message to the voters of South Carolina and is confident they will make the right decision.”

The meeting was organized by leaders including Perkins, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; former presidential candidate Gary Bauer; and Don Wildmon, of the American Family Association.

The group met at the Brenham-area ranch of former state appeals court judge Paul Pressler, a leader in the Southern Baptist fundamentalist movement.