1.   An organized conservative Christian voting bloc has been crucial in deciding a long list of races, from school boards to Congress.

2.   Assessing the conservative Christian bloc is especially difficult this year since ardent believers have so many suitors.

3.   Bush and congressional Republicans are taking notice, and the traditional anti-immigrant conservative bloc is being overwhelmed.

4.   It looked to me like whoever was in this kind of conservative bloc there just decided he was going to take the fall.

5.   Its conservative voting bloc consists of three justices, Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, all appointed by Republican presidents.

6.   Some of the liveliest debates on the court, in fact, are taking place not between liberals and conservatives, but within the conservative bloc itself.

7.   The Republicans cannot afford to ignore, much less alienate, what had previously been a relatively conservative bloc of votes.

8.   The usually free-spending Socialists and the fiscally conservative Gaullist bloc of President Jacques Chirac came down on unexpected sides of the trenches.

9.   These appointments did not produce a strictly ideologically conservative court, but Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas constitute a solid conservative voting bloc.

10.   A conservative bloc led by media magnate Berlusconi plans to vote against Dini, who they accuse of reneging on promises to resign in time for spring elections.