BOB ABERNETHY: Now our Cover Story: the strength and the troubles of the religious right. With the Iowa caucuses this coming week and the New Hampshire primary the week after, we asked Terry Eastland, publisher of AMERICAN SPECTATOR magazine, to assess the political power of America's religious conservatives.Group of Protesters (In Unison): Youth vote counts! The youth vote counts!
Youth vote counts! Youth vote counts!
TERRY EASTLAND (Publisher, THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR; Contributing Correspondent): It's presidential election 2000 in the state of New Hampshire, and once again, people of faith are actively involved.
Ms. KAREN TESTERMAN (Bauer for President 2000): ... really interested in doing something to serve America, and I -- I'm proud of you.We are given this stewardship responsibility to take care of our -- what -- the gifts that God's given us, and one of the things he's given us is this particular nation.
EASTLAND: Karen Testerman is director of the Gary Bauer campaign for president in New Hampshire. She was raised an Episcopalian, but now attends evangelical churches. She describes herself as a religious conservative.
According to pollster Andrew Kohut, about 25 percent of the eligible voters are religious conservatives, people of faith who hold conservative political views, especially on abortion and other social issues.
Mr. ANDREW KOHUT (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press): There's been a great reaction against the social cultural changes of the '70s. A lot of the religious conservatism is in response to that, people looking at these changes and saying they have either gone too far or they have to be moderated in some way.EASTLAND: Kohut says this group of conservatives now votes overwhelmingly Republican, when once they divided their support evenly between Republicans and Democrats. Just what difference that will make on Election Day is one of the big questions this year, and the answer could depend on the role played by Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition.
Mr. PAT ROBERTSON (Christian Coalition) ... if we aren't in the field in this coming election, that the Republicans are going to lose. I don't think there's any question about it. We will be the margin of victory in the key states in the United States of America.
EASTLAND: It was soon after Pat Robertson ran for president in 1988 that he founded the Christian Coalition, the largest and the most influential of the religious conservative groups. But over the past three years, the coalition has struggled. It has drawn criticism from former allies who say that it's been ineffective. In a number of key races in 1998, the conservative candidates lost, and fewer religious conservatives voted than in previous years.
Recently, the Christian Coalition has faced financial, legal, and organizational difficulties. It fell into debt. It also lost its application for tax-exempt status. And it also lost some key national officers.
Mr. JOHN GREEN (University of Akron): Some problems were quite serious of -- the exit of some of their key operatives. I think that's very problematic. And the decline in their fund raising is particularly serious.EASTLAND: The organizational problems have extended beyond coalition headquarters. The group lost leaders in some key states, including Iowa and New Hampshire.
Ms. TESTERMAN: Christian Coalition has taken a nosedive in this state. It was very, very active up at the beginning of last year, and then their executive director left, and since then, it's not been as cohesive and active. And I think that at the national level, it's causing some problems, and that's been neglected in the state as well.
EASTLAND: Some former officials claim that the coalition inflated its membership numbers.
Mr. ROBERTSON: I was out of the coalition for a number of years, and, unfortunately, when I got back, we learned that some of the stuff was smoke and mirrors and -- Did we go through some rough times? The answer is yes. But I think we're coming out of it stronger than we were before. We have thinned down the staff. We have put in some very active and aggressive people into place. We have reduced the budget dramatically.EASTLAND: The coalition's voter guides remain an issue. Passed out right before Election Day, they list candidates and their positions on matters important to religious conservatives, such as abortion and school choice. The guides have been faulted as partisan and a manipulation of religion. In the last election, The Interfaith Council, a group of religious liberals founded in 1994 to counter the coalition, urged churches not to distribute the guides. The Reverend Welton Gaddy is the group's executive director.
EASTLAND: Thomas worked for the Reverend Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, the most prominent of the religious conservative groups before the Christian Coalition was founded. He and the Reverend Ed Dobson, who also worked for the Moral Majority, stunned many religious conservatives with their recent book, BLINDED BY MIGHT. They argue that the movement has been too concerned with politics.
Mr. THOMAS: I am, I think, assessing, if it's not too premature to conclude this, a kind of fed-up-ness or a tiredness among some who have been at this for a long time and are taking another look at it.
Mr. GARY BAUER (Republican Presidential Candidate): I can't imagine worse advice. Almost all the major issues facing the country are, at the end of the day, moral issues. They will be argued out in the political arena. But if we said to Americans of faith, "Well, you can't be part of a debate about racial reconciliation; you can't be part of the debate about how we treat the poor," we won't solve those issues in a way that will be consistent with our country.
Mr. ROBERTSON: I believe that the membership of the coalition would be quite content with him as the candidate. He has -- is wisely not stepping into land mines. He's playing intelligent in terms of his campaign, and I think that coalition members and others have got to understand that that's what's going on.
Rev. GADDY: It's that really tough tension that people of faith are always going to experience in the political process, and that is: Do I stand by certain principles, regardless of the political consequences, or am I so interested in being successful politically that I'm willing to bend a little over here on this principle? And there is a grave downside to both of them.
