Why the turnaround? Simple enough: Dole covets the GOP presidential nomination. The way to get it is to win support from religious conservatives-the same voters who form the core of North’s angry, anti-Washington campaign. “Dole can count,” dryly observes Ralph Reed, director of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition. With increasing sophistication, the religious right has been working to take over the GOP at the grass roots. In a number of states-and now in Republican presidential politics -it has succeeded. The first candidate “cattle show” is next week in Iowa, one of the Christian right’s strongest states.
The 1992 Houston convention was supposed to have exposed the strategic dangers of the religious right to the GOP. It is an article of faith among Democrats and Beltway pundits that the new evangelical forces will hopelessly divide Republicans and scare independent voters back to the Democratic camp. But that view may be wrong on two counts. It may underestimate the GOP’s willingness to accept its new insurgents. And at a time of concern about moral decline, religious conservatives might not seem so dangerous to the rest of America. “They believe in God, country and motherhood,” said Margaret Tutwiler, a pro-choice moderate GOP insider. “How scary is that?”
Not scary at all to contenders for the GOP nomination. They’re working hard for the religious right’s support. Former defense secretary Dick Cheney -soft-spoken, the soul of stylistic moderation–was keynote speaker at the Virginia convention won by North, and he recently addressed a Christian Coalition state meeting in Georgia. Former vice president Dan Quayle is a Robertson phone pal. Former education secretary Lamar Alexander makes common cause with Robertson and other religious-right leaders on a key issue: school vouchers. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas brokered a deal that ensured state Republicans would choose a new chairman last week loyal to religious conservatives. Even former labor secretary Lynn Martin-a rare pro-choice hopeful-prizes the fundamentalists’ support. In 1992, one of her advisers notes, Robertson said Martin would have been an acceptable party chair. “Believe me, we’ve got copies of that sound bite,” the adviser said with a laugh.
Democrats are compiling their own collection of sound bites-on the theory that Robertson and his ilk could be Bill Clinton’s best allies in ‘96. “Some Democrats have been asked to answer for Louis Farrakhan,” said Paul Begala, a political adviser to President Clinton. “We’re going to make Republicans answer for the radicals in their party.” One of Begala’s favorites: a quote from a 1992 Robertson fund-raising letter in which he says that feminism is a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
Scare tactics aside, Clinton aides think he can neutralize religious conservatives -and even win some of them to his side -by employing a theme that’s especially appealing to born-again evangelical Christians in the Bible belt. “It’s the power of redemption,” said one longtime Clinton friend and adviser. “When he was governor of Arkansas, Clinton loved to go to those Pentecostal retreats.” Repent your sins-personal, political -and be saved. A tent revival on the White House South Lawn? Unlikely. But if Clinton is interested, he’d better hurry. Republicans already are planning a revival meeting of their own.
