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MOTIVATED A rally for a ban on same-sex marriages in Minnesota.
Tom Olmscheid/AP
Wooing Conservatives
Looking to Win in
November,
With a 2-Year-Old
Playbook
By ADAM NAGOURNEY,
NYimes on the Web, April 16, 2006
WASHINGTON -- IN 2004, Karl
Rove declared that President Bush would win re-election if Republicans turned
out millions of religious and other conservative voters who had stayed home in
2000. And they did just that, with the help of voter outreach campaigns, a
network of church appeals and state initiatives that would ban gay marriage.
In 2006, with both the House and Senate in the balance, the Republican Party
faces much the same challenge in this election. This time, though, party
leaders say the conservative base seems enervated by administration missteps and
unfulfilled expectations, and recent polls have reflected this.
"There is reason for them to be concerned," said Tony Perkins, president of the
Christian conservative Family Research Council.
The question for Republicans, then, is how to draw this crucial group to the
polls and keep them voting for the party's candidates. The short answer is
that some of what may have worked last time — like anti-gay-marriage initiatives
— is on the runway, ready to go. But 2006 is nothing like 2004; and the
get-out-the-vote tools wielded last time do not seem quite as formidable this
year.
True, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, is planning to bring
a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage to a vote in June. So
far, seven states have amendments against gay marriage on the ballot this
November: South Dakota, Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia,
Wisconsin and Colorado, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights
group, compared with 11 states in 2004. And there is talk in some states,
including Ohio, of a measure that bars adoption by same-sex couples.
Republicans said the initiatives could prove significant in Senate races in
Tennessee, where there is an open seat because of the retirement of Mr. Frist,
and in Virginia, where George Allen is up for re-election. In South
Carolina, the existence of such an initiative has fed Republican hopes that
Representative John M. Spratt Jr., a 12-term Democrat, could be upset.
Yet there is a strong sense among Republicans that the gay rights issue is not
as powerful as it once was, particularly when it comes to state initiatives like
the one in Ohio that helped Mr. Bush carry the state in 2004. Republicans
are running out of contested states where such a ballot could qualify and pass,
and gay rights groups have been more aggressive in fighting these initiatives as
they appear.
"Gay marriage is not the magic bullet to get us out of our situation," said
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina.
Beyond that, Republican officials said candidates in culturally conservative
parts of the country would try to fight efforts to allow stem cell research.
"That is an issue of great importance that has moved to the side, but I think
will come back strong in the next few months," said Colin A. Hanna, founder of
the conservative advocacy group Let Freedom Ring.
Yet some Republicans say they fear that the issue could help the Democrats,
because polls show widespread public support for the research. In
Missouri, a proposed initiative would put the right to stem cell research in the
State Constitution. Senator Jim Talent, a Republican facing a tough
challenge, has declined to take a position on the initiative, and has also
abandoned his support for a federal ban supported by many Senate Republicans;
his Democratic opponent, Claire McCaskill, the state auditor, supports the
Missouri initiative.
Republican strategists said they hoped to remind voters of what they regard as
the single clearest accomplishment with this White House: Creating a
decidedly more conservative judiciary.
Yet party officials acknowledged that this issue had more sway two years ago,
before Mr. Bush succeeded in putting John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
on the Supreme Court. "We were able to confirm two conservative justices
and that's a huge deal and one of the top issues for conservatives," said Brian
Nicks, the communications director for the National Republican Senate Campaign
Committee. "We have to communicate that to our base."
There are related state initiatives circulating this year that analysts said
could prove more effective in moving conservatives: in particular, efforts
to limit the Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain, and prevent the
government's taking of private property, a hot issue with many conservatives.
There are now signatures being gathered to put an initiative like that on the
ballot in California, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota,
Oregon and Washington, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.
Immigration is also a tempting target for Republican strategists because it is
such an urgent concern. There is considerable support for the kind of
tough bill passed by House Republicans. "The grassroots base of the
conservative Republican Party is very keenly interested in securing our
borders," said Morton C. Blackwell, the president the Leadership Institute, a
conservative grassroots training organization. But the risks of using that
issue, and alienating Hispanic voters, became clear in the last few weeks with
the mass demonstrations of immigrants in American cities.
Even an issue like the Republicans' record on federal spending is cutting across
the usual lines differentiating the fiscal conservatives and religious
conservatives. While they are seen as two separate wings of the movement,
there is considerable overlap between the two groups, according to Republican
leaders.
And Senator Graham said that he thought recent government spending, more than
any other issue, accounted for the demoralization that should keep Republican
leaders worried.
"It's not very good news for Republicans to hear that the Republican-controlled
Congress has tripled earmarks on our watch," said Senator Graham, referring to
widely criticized special-interest spending by Congress.
One of the best tools Republicans had to turn out conservatives in 2004, and in
2002 for that matter, was Mr. Bush himself; he was welcome wherever he went.
Now that is not the case.
A Pew poll in March showed that Mr. Bush's approval ratings among conservatives
had dropped from 94 percent to a still lofty 78 percent in January. But
his support among evangelical Christians had dropped more substantially.
As of last month, 54 percent of white evangelicals approved of the president's
job in office, while 36 percent disapproved.
His support also dropped among people who attend church each week or more
frequently. According to post-election exit polls conducted by the
National Election Pool, these voters backed Mr. Bush over John Kerry by a 61
percent to 38 percent. But now more disapprove (46 percent) than approve
(42 percent) of his performance. Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew
Research Center, said that his organization's polling had found no evidence of a
similar turn against the Republican Party, but said that the view of the party's
standard-bearer could reduce turnout.
The Republican Party swamped the Democrats on turnout two years ago in no small
part because it pioneered sophisticated voter identification and communication
efforts.
This time, though, officials in both parties say the parties are more evenly
matched. And Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, said
that such election tools, no matter how sophisticated, would not be enough to
carry the Republicans to victory, though he said he was less pessimistic than
others about a depressed Republican turnout.
"Ultimately, I believe it comes down to ideas more than tactics," Mr. Mehlman
said. "What I think ultimately is going to turn out people is reminding
them that there is a choice: Reminding them what we are for and what they
are."
Still, it seems telling that in conversations last week, many Republicans
looking for a way out of this said they were looking not to their party but to
the Democrats. "Our ace in the hole may well eventually be some goofy idea
pushed by the Democrats that makes people want to run," Senator Graham said.
"But if that doesn't happen, we are in trouble."
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