Why don't Republicans go after the Atheist vote?

[CapnAwesome]

1) Atheists are still a hated minority; it doesn't serve any party's interest to embrace a minority hated by the majority,
2) Atheists don't form a cohesive voting bloc (herding cats, etc)
3) atheists don't have readily identifiable ideological leaders, so access is problematic
4) atheist's voting behavior is likely more reliably predicted by other demographic identifications (black, Hispanic, poor), and so you'd essentially be spending the same dollar twice (with less purchasing power) going after them
5) belief in their own propaganda; I think it's a common perception on the right that there does not exist a large contingent of dedicated atheists (much less the 'non-affiliated'), so for the conservative, the atheist pie simply isn't big enough or significant enough,
6) they already have strong ties to people of faith, who form a larger voting bloc, and whose affections would likely be estranged by openly courting atheists,
7) Atheists and atheism generally leads to controversy and conflict in a largely religious society, something which any politician (or business) would do well to distance themselves from,

One thing on your list that I take issue with is that Atheists (or other non-religious) don't vote as a bloc. I think they vote Democratic (or not at all.) If you look at these boards, you scarcely see a Republican Atheist (Tino) and a plethora of Democrats and some apathetic libertarians. Some of it seems to simply be because of Republican hostility. Strategically they might manage to drop that hostility from their platform and keep the religious vote. Karl Rove himself is 'not a person of faith' after all. Also the ties to religion doesn't particularly seem to be working, especially with an aging electorate.