Courting Evangelicals

GOP At Meeting Of Christian Right

By JANICE D'ARCY
Courant Staff Writer

September 25 2004

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Mike Pence looked into the audience of 500, already whipped into a cheering mass, and told them to pray. This will be the most important election of their lifetimes, he said. They should get on their knees and pray that the right side wins on Nov. 2.

The crowd of mostly white but otherwise diverse Christian conservatives interrupted him with their applause. The Republican from Indiana interrupted them back. He hadn't made his crucial point.

Over their clapping, he called out, "but I don't want you in the prayer closet Nov. 1.

"I'm talking about licking and sticking, front yards and yard stakes, phone calling and door knocking. Do the work."

Pence was one of more than a dozen Republican members of Congress courting religious conservatives this week when the Christian Coalition gathered in Washington.

The group was not in town for a mass rally, its typical annual event. Instead, this year, coalition President Roberta Combs organized a three-day training conference intended to inspire members to mobilize the religious conservative vote on Election Day.

The event, and the wooing it inspired, was a powerful acknowledgment of the importance of the religious vote in this year's election.

Much of the strategic debate between the parties has focused on swing voters in swing states as the campaign heads into its final weeks. But there is also a forceful Republican effort to ensure that religious conservatives cast their ballots.

Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for President Bush's re-election campaign this week acknowledged that evangelical voters "under-performed" in 2000. "We're obviously concerned about the turnout," he said.

Both Republican and Democratic pollsters have found that about 4 million evangelical voters expected to support Bush in 2000 never showed up at the voting booth.

This year, the campaign is lavishing significantly more attention on the constituency.

The Christian Coalition, for one, has a prominent presence in the Bush-Cheney campaign. Former coalition president Ralph Reed is the Southeast chairman for the campaign.

Even the venue for Friday's session, a hall in a Senate office building across the street from the U.S. Capitol, spoke to how the coalition, the most visible of the religious lobbying organizations, was welcomed. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell had arranged for the group to meet there.

The group responded in kind. When their national field director, Bill Thomson, took the podium he delivered a rousing pitch. "We are not going to let Christians sit home this year. There will be no missing evangelicals this year."

Speaker after speaker Friday reminded the audience members of their responsibility not just to vote, but to also ensure that like-minded friends, neighbors and acquaintances vote.

The Rev. Frank Pavone, a politically active New Jersey priest who was one of the few speakers Friday not in public office, suggested the members "Take [Election] Day off from work and make a pest of yourself. Call everyone you know and pester them. `Did you vote?'"

Donna and Dennis Scialanca, a couple who traveled from their home in suburban Philadelphia to attend the conference, said the gathering is motivating them to work harder this year.

Donna Scialanca said she would drive other conservative voters to the polls on Nov. 2. Her husband said he was sharpening his argument to convince friends who are less impressed with President Bush. "The Democrats are anti-Christian, anti-American space aliens as far as I'm concerned," he said.

None of the scheduled speakers hailed from Connecticut. In the coalition's congressional scorecard this year, only Rep. Chris Shays, R-4th District, received a rating over 50 on a scale of 0 to 100.

Shays, at 53, was followed by Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, at 46; Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-5th District, at 41; Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, at 15; and Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, at 9. Sens. Chris Dodd and Joseph Lieberman both received scores of 0.

Outside Connecticut, however, pollsters have found that religious conservatives are likely to be a forceful voting block. A May Zogby Poll found evangelicals, fundamentalists and born again voters constitute about 30 percent of the registered voters in battleground states. And the vast majority of those voters reported that they would support Bush.

"We're going to be ready. We're going to be strong this time," the Rev. Jerry Falwell, also a speaker Friday, told the audience. He recounted his own voter registration drive in churches across the country and urged the coalition members to work "like we're down 1 percent."

Falwell predicted a wide margin of victory for the Republicans. Then he added a line that brought the audience to its feet, "I'd love to see such a landslide this time that everybody, including the Republican Party, knows that Christ did it."

Copyright 2004, Hartford Courant