Crucifying the Christian Right.

Washington, D.C.

ONE of the first salvos in the Democratic cannonade against the Religious Right came in a June 9 Al Hunt column in the Wall Street Journal. Hunt led with the story of Sue Munsey, former president of the Cocoa Beach, Florida, Chamber of Commerce. Miss Munsey, he related, had been considering running for Congress as a Republican. Then she attended a GOP county executive meeting "and was stunned: the session was dominated by Religious Right activists, and it was made clear that she was out of place. The following week she announced her congressional candidacy--as a Democrat."

Pretty chilling But Mr. Hunt doesn't mention that seven candidates were clawing for the Republican nomination, and none for the Democratic--until Sue Munsey had her conversion. Local GOP officials had word that Democrats were courting her even before the fateful meeting, where she says Republican extremism on abortion (i.e., being pro-life) turned her off. The chairman of the local GOP even says he,d never before seen her at a county executive meeting. No wonder she felt "out of place."

The offensive against the Religious Right began with shots from DNC Chairman David Wilhelm early in June and built to the week of June 20, when Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairman Vic Fazio, Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, and President Clinton all slammed it. These broadsides are a test run for the Democrats, congressional campaign strategy in the fall.

So far, the maneuver has faltered for lack of fuel: the Democrats are unable to support their charges of extremism. At his June 21 National Press Club appearance, for example, Fazio predicted Democrats will be "picking up seats [in the fall] that are being fought out over issues of intolerance, issues related to the agenda of the radical Right as the agenda of the Republican Party." One reporter wanted to know what he meant by "intolerance."

Fazio: "Well, I think intolerance, essentially is a desire to forget there's a separation between church and state, for example."

Another asked what's "radical" in the Religious Right's agenda.

"Well, I guess, I fear the intolerance, as I said earlier, of people"--

"Specifically?" insisted the reporter.

--"as it comes down to books in the library, magazines, and newspapers, things that relate to people's sexual preference, places in which it's appropriate to express your faith, and ways in which you might do it."

In other words, Fazio doesn't have an answer. Democrats would love to find a Republican candidate out to ban books; they'll look in vain. The Religious Right --as the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed announced it would in a Policy Review article last summer--is emphasizing mainstream issues like taxes and crime. Even those candidates closely aligned with it (at most, 1 in every 15 GOP congressional candidates, according to Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report) are looking to win votes, not jihads.

Take another Al Hunt target. In his June 9 column, Hunt highlighted a traditionally Republican congressional district in Idaho now represented by Democrat Larry LaRocco. "With a former lieutenant governor running for the GOP nomination, the Republicans were optimistic" about re-taking the seat, Hunt reported. "But the upset primary victory of Religious Right candidate Helen Chenoweth--who on a recent trip to Washington sought to assure . . . Charlie Cook |I'm not a Nazi'--has left Representative LaRocco the favorite."

Miss Chenoweth, a natural-resources consultant and GOP campaign manager and consultant for about twenty years, did upset former Lieutenant Governor David Leroy. But not as a fringe candidate. She rolled up 48 per cent of the primary vote in a four-way race. "It was a textbook campaign, tremendous organization and tremendous excitement," says local pollster Greg Smith. A local TV station's poll before the primary had her leading LaRocco 46 to 44, while Leroy slightly trailed the incumbent.

While Helen Chenoweth is pro-life and supports Idaho's version of Colorado's Amendment 2, she plans to pocket those issues and instead talk about President Clinton--whose approval ratings hover at about 24 per cent in Idaho--and Bruce Babbitt's "War on the West." "Interesting race," is how Charlie Cook sums it up. "Doesn't have a lot to do with religion, though."

Democrats may not be able to find actual "intolerant" or "radical" GOP candidates, but they'll have accomplished something if their attack rhetoric spooks Republican moderates; the more John Warners assailing their party's base, the better.

But so far, there haven't been many Warners. The day of Fazio's remarks, RNC Chairman Haley Barbour blasted the Democrats for "consider[ing] religious bigotry an acceptable campaign strategy." On the Senate floor, Bob Dole mounted a similar defense. And all 44 Republican senators (including Jeffords, Danforth, and their ilk) signed a letter assailing Democrats who "cheapen our democracy through religious bigotry."

"The key here," says Free Congress Foundation President Paul Weyrich, "is that the Republican leadership for the first time in my political lifetime reacted properly."

There's a reason. It has become hard to deny the Religious Right's value to the GOP. In the special House races this spring in Oklahoma and Kentucky, the Christian Coalition ran phone banks, did 10,000 mailings, and distributed 90,000 voter guides. The result: Republican victories in traditionally Democratic districts. And the Religious Right is willing to play by inclusionary rules. Paul Coverdell and Kay Bailey Hutchison--both pro-choice--won Senate seats last year with the support of Christian conservatives. "Republicans know," says Ralph Reed, "what a vital role the pro-family voters have played in giving Republicans nine victories in the last nine major elections."

Far from feeling beleaguered, the Christian Right is making the most of the attacks. The day after it ran an ad in USA Today supporting the right of the religious to be involved in politics, the Family Research Council, a relatively small outfit, received an unprecedented one thousand calls in response.

At least some Clinton offficials still realize that talking softly with the Religious Right--as the White House did assiduously before this spring--is smarter than carrying a big stick.

On June 22, Administration officials met with the legal counsel for several evangelical groups in White House counsel Lloyd Cutler's office. The evangelicals asked for an Administration "ombudsman" to ensure its compliance with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law, signed by Clinton last November, designed to protect religious speech and action from government burdens. Philip Lader, White House deputy chief of staff, said he liked the idea and hoped that in the future evangelicals would bring complaints to the Administration before publicly criticizing the President. Clinton himself popped in to assure the group of his commitment to religious freedom.

The evangelicals left the White House feeling a distinct rapport--only to be greeted with Joycelyn Elders's sound bites and the President's angry remarks two days later on a St. Louis radio station. "It really seemed like Jekyll-and-Hyde behavior," says Michael Whitehead, public-policy lawyer for the Southern Baptist Convention.

Mr. Hyde hasn't played well. Democrats knew they,d be walking a fine line between condemning political enemies and condemning all people of faith. "We need to refer to them as the far Religious Right, or as right-wing extremists," went one strategic memo quoted by Cokie Roberts on Nightline. "But preferably the radical Right." (The words "Christian" and "religious" get overwhelmingly favorable reactions in polls, the word "radical" hardly any at all.) Fazio, badgered by reporters about the Christian Right, made a point of switching back to "radical" and noting, "I use that-term far more than the questions have implied."

It's a risky semantic distinction--especially when 42 per cent of Democrats identify themselves as Born Again. "If you look at the congressional districts where the Democrats are in trouble in the South and the West, there are large religious populations," says John Green, a University of Akron political scientist. "Not all of them are lined up with Pat Robertson. But when they start hearing this anti-religious rhetoric, there's a real danger they'll feel attacked."

One border-state Democrat, Representative Scotty Baesler, who plans to run for governor of Kentucky next year, has already rejected the strategy, saying he won't accept any support from Fazio's DCCC in his re-election effort this year. "They might have [a] national perspective they're looking at," he told a local TV station, "but from Kentucky's perspective, I don't think [it's] very helpful."

Democrats need something helpful soon. In a typical election year, there are 30 to 50 competitive congressional races. This year there are roughly 175, and about 129 of those are for seats held by Democrats. Of 30 seats now occupied by Democrats who will not be running for re-election, the DCCC considers just two "likely Democratic" in the fall. For the first time in memory, the Republicans are fielding more congressional candidates than the Democrats, and have more incumbents running unopposed. The Democrats thought attacking the "Religious Right" could help lift the clouds from this threatening horizon. They'll have to think again.