Religious right's campaign power fading

"Candidates don't feel they need to check with Rev. Pat (Robertson) or Rev. Jerry (Falwell) or Ralph Reed."

--- DAVID HILL,

Republican strategist

By SUSAN BAER

The Baltimore Sun

WASHINGTON --- In one of the most provocative moments of the campaign season so far, Republican presidential front-runner George W. Bush pronounced Jesus Christ the "political thinker" with whom he most identifies. The Texas governor peppers his speeches with evangelical phrases, talks of sharing his heart and defines himself in terms of his religious awakening at age 40.

But Bush has refused to utter the less ethereal words that have long been the most persuasive to the GOP's base of Christian conservatives --- that he would rule out anyone who supported abortion rights as a running mate.

Bush's push and pull when it comes to his courtship of religious conservatives, considered the Republican Party's most loyal voters, might say more about this constituency than it does about the candidate, with the once-powerful movement today in a state of flux.

To be sure, the movement is still influential --- perhaps more so than ever --- in shaping the political landscape and dialogue. Never before in modern times have so many politicians talked so much about God or made such public displays of their faith.

But, just as the presidential candidates appear to be trying to "out-Christianize" one another, as one journalist recently put it, the religious conservative movement is waning in potency as an organized, grass-roots force on the campaign trail.

"Candidates want to appeal to America's religious convictions but don't necessarily believe that Christian conservatives have the same clout they used to have," said John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California.

The organized effort that has been a formidable player in the past decade --- raising money, mobilizing voters, helping to elect the first Republican Congress in 40 years, forcing moderate Republican candidates to move to the right --- appears to be fading.

Part of the decline is directly related to the crumbling of the Christian Coalition, the organization founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson and built into a national force by activist Ralph Reed.

Although its strength varies greatly from state to state --- with more activity in the South and in such conservative states as Iowa and little in states such as New Hampshire --- the organization's decline has left a striking leadership vacuum.

"The Christian conservative movement is probably as strong, if not stronger, than ever, but because there's no leader or organizational framework, it's less likely to be effective," said David Hill, a Houston-based Republican pollster and strategist.

"There's not a gatekeeper anymore in the movement," he said. "Candidates don't feel they need to check with Rev. Pat (Robertson) or Rev. Jerry (Falwell) or Ralph Reed to see if they're going to be OK with something."

But Republican strategists and conservative leaders say there is more to the loosening grip of religious conservatism than weakening of the Christian Coalition.

For one thing, they say, there is exhaustion and frustration over a string of legislative failures in recent years, especially the inability of the GOP to remove an impeached and scandal-ridden president from office.

Soon after President Clinton's impeachment and acquittal, Paul Weyrich, considered the godfather of the religious right movement, virtually admitted defeat.

Conservatives, too, have lost some firepower --- and credibility - -- with a string of Clinton-like scandals within their own ranks. Pointing to recent revelations of marital infidelity among such GOP leaders as former Rep. Robert L. Livingston and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, conservative writer David Brooks recently wrote that American conservatism is "flamboyantly cracking up."

But in some ways, the "crackup" of conservatism has as much to do with the movement's success in the past 10 to 20 years as its failures.

Religious conservatives have been so effective in flexing their electoral muscle that they have been woven into the mainstream Republican Party, making it less necessary to organize separately. Evangelical Protestants who identify with the Christian right account for about 15 percent to 20 percent of the electorate, says John Green, director of the University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Politics, and more in states such as Iowa.

In many ways, the Christian conservative movement has much at stake in 2000.

A key test will come early in this month's Iowa caucuses.

If one of the more conservative candidates such as Bauer or Forbes does surprisingly well, it will be a testament to the enduring power of the evangelical movement even in the midst of organizational disarray.

But, says Wittmann, "if it doesn't happen in Iowa, it's not going to happen.

Copyright 2000
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