November 3, 1999

Will Religious Right bring
home the voters in 2000?
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___Ed McAteer has been around the block more than a few times seeking to advance a conservative Christian agenda through the American political process, and he's convinced voters will endorse that agenda in record numbers a year from this week when they elect a new president.
___Randall Balmer, a sociologist, has watched religious conservatives go around the block

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH receives a warm welcome at the Christian Coalition's "Road to Victory" rally in Washington, D.C., in October. (RNS/Reuters)

more than a few times seeking to advance their agenda, and he's convinced the influence of the Religious Right should be declared dead on arrival in the current election cycle.
___Their opposing views frame what is shaping up to be a major question in the 2000 presidential elections: Do conservative evangelical Christians still have the clout to swing an election as they are credited with doing in 1980, 1984 and 1988?
___McAteer, a retired marketing manager from Memphis, Tenn., has been at the front of the Religious Right's parade since before most Americans even knew there was such a movement. As founder of the Religious Roundtable, he was the organizer of the 1980 National Affairs Briefing in Dallas, where Ronald Reagan offered the now-famous pledge to the Religious Right: "I know you can't endorse me, but I endorse you."
___Reagan's appearance at the Dallas event is widely believed to have cemented the relationship between the Republican Party and the conservative evangelical political movement and ensured Reagan's defeat of Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher Jimmy Carter, the Democratic incumbent.
___Those were heady days for the Religious Right, leading to formation of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and then Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition.
___Though the Moral Majority has long since dissolved and though many observers believe the Christian Coalition is in disarray, McAteer proclaims the grass-roots movement both organizations represented is stronger than ever. He's already planning a National Affairs Briefing for next August or September, with speaking invitations to be issued to the nominees of all political parties. The 2000 event will be held either in Dallas, San Antonio, Atlanta, Memphis or Nashville.
___"The interest level of people in the presidential race is much higher today than it was at any time, including 1980 when Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter ran," said McAteer, a member of Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis.
___On a scale of one to 10, if the interest level of "social conservatives, Bible-believing Christians, the Christian right or whatever you want to call them" was a three in 1979, it's somewhere between seven and eight today, McAteer said.
___Not so, says Balmer, a sociology professor and author specializing in religious politics.
___"The Religious Right may have been born during the administration of a Democratic Southern Baptist president and may be dying during the administration of a Democratic Southern Baptist president," said Balmer, who teaches at Columbia University. "I think there's really something to that."
___As Exhibit A, he points to the recent comments of Cal Thomas, Ed Dobson and Paul Weyrich "who are saying, in effect, the game's over and we lost and we had better tend to our knitting at home."
___Within the last year, Thomas and Dobson released a much-ballyhooed book in which they contend the conservative evangelical political movement they helped lead went about things the wrong way and has failed to effect significant change. Weyrich, a key Republican strategist, likewise has made public pronouncements that Christians should retreat from the political battle and focus instead on prayer, evangelism and ministry.
___Balmer's view is shared by Robert Parham, director of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville, Tenn., and a frequent critic of the increasing ties between Southern Baptist Convention leaders and the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party.
___"Much of the Religious Right now sounds the bugle of retreat instead of the trumpet of takeover," Parham said. "As the movement evacuates the political field, some Religious Right leaders seek public pity with claims they are being persecuted and martyred. Others turn up the rhetorical voltage, despite organizational debt, the departure of seasoned leaders and admissions that organizational strength has been grossly overstated."
___Parham refers in particular to the Christian Coalition, which this year lost its fight to gain tax-exempt status, has experienced a round of high-level staff departures, has been accused of inflating membership figures and has financial difficulties, including a reported deficit of $2 million or more.
___Don't believe everything you hear, countered Chuck Anderson, director of the Texas Christian Coalition, based in Bedford.
___"A great response to some of the stuff that's being written about the Christian Coalition is from Mark Twain, who wrote, 'The reports of my death are an exaggeration,'" Anderson said. "Our organization is still alive at the grassroots and moving ahead."
___The coalition's national office may have experienced a "hiccup," he admitted, but "they're OK now."
___"The Christian Coalition and conservative Christian voters will have a tremendous impact on the presidential election this year," Anderson predicted. "Even the Democratic candidates, Al Gore in particular, are talking about our issues."
___The fact remains, Anderson said, that "evangelical Christians, along with pro-family Roman Catholics, make up the single largest voting bloc in the country."
___Yet even Anderson admits it's unlikely that voting bloc will vote as a unified force in any presidential election. "One-third or more of that voting bloc voted for Bill Clinton," he explained.
___That demonstrates the difference between Reagan and George Bush, who was defeated by Clinton in 1992, said McAteer. While Clinton, considered the arch-enemy of the hard-core Religious Right, got 38 percent of the evangelical vote in the race against Bush, Reagan sewed up 82 percent of the evangelical vote, he said.
___The Reagan success story could be repeated, McAteer said, "if the right person gets out there and can articulate" the same conservative vision Reagan crafted. "In my opinion, that person could get 85 percent of the evangelical vote."
___The problem is, the likely Republican nominee is no Reagan. In fact, he's the son of the candidate defeated by Clinton amid a defection of many evangelical voters.
___Texas Gov. George W. Bush, while courting religious conservatives on one hand, has been short on specific pledges about the Religious Right's social agenda and has publicly slapped down some of the far-right's heroes in Congress, accusing them of "slouching toward Gomorrah" and attempting to balance the federal budget on the backs of the poor.
___While opponents of the Religious Right take glee in the quandary George W. Bush may create for conservative evangelicals, leaders of that movement steadfastly insist they don't see a problem.
___"It's not that Gov. Bush is by any means turning away from those social issues," said Anderson, head of the Texas Christian Coalition. "He's just not necessarily highlighting those issues in his presentations. It's like the Apostle Paul, who said, 'When I'm with the Greeks, I talk like the Greeks.'"
___When push comes to shove, many religious conservatives believe Bush will support their social agenda, even though he can't always say so while campaigning, Anderson said. He noted, however, that members of the Christian Coalition are backing a variety of presidential candidates and the coalition itself won't endorse any single candidate.
___Coalition founder Robertson came close, though, during the "Road to Victory" rally in Washington last month. While making introductions at the rally, Robertson fawned over Bush, noting he would be "a very acceptable candidate."
___McAteer said he wishes Republican contender Gary Bauer could get a better hearing from the American public, but he concedes Bush will be the nominee because the Republican Party apparatus is behind him strongly.
___Bush is saying the right things and is a "decent person," McAteer said. But Bauer "speaks with a conviction that is very real. It's not just to tickle your ears. He believes deeply in these issues."
___Nevertheless, a large number of Reagan evangelicals will line up behind Bush next November because they see him as their best hope, McAteer predicted. "What I'm hearing is a general discontent. People are saying, 'We don't believe he's a Ronald Reagan; he's not a Gary Bauer; but he is so much better than what we have.'
___"That is what the thinking is. I've heard people use the expression, 'I'll hold my nose and vote.'"
___While conservative activists like McAteer and Anderson are looking at the glass half full, others like Balmer and Parham are shining a light on the half-empty portion.
___Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, signed on with Bush because Reed is a "consummate pragmatist," Balmer said. "And the cynic in me says Robertson is willing to sacrifice principle for power."
___Parham sees fault lines breaking up the conservative evangelical voting bloc for now and the future.
___"The center cannot hold," he said. "The movement will fragment into three camps. Part of the Religious Right will withdraw even more deeply into a culture of biblical fundamentalism and American free enterprise with Christian schools, Christian businesses and Christian radio stations. A second part will accommodate to win another presidential election. A third group will privatize and spiritualize faith, much like some evangelicals did in earlier days in the 20th century."
___Balmer concurs with the latter assessment.
___"Evangelicals are returning to the kind of privatization of morality they practiced prior to Jimmy Carter's administration," he said. "And maybe that's not all bad."
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