THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994 TAG: 9406160001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A19 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Robert Novak
DATELINE: 940616 LENGTH: WASHINGTON
The realism: The religious right, led by Robertson's Christian Coalition, is the most - perhaps the only - dynamic growth element in the Grand Old Party. But these declasse newcomers are intolerable to the well-heeled heirs of a genteel Republican tradition who seek to cleanse their ancestral party.
{REST} This internal tension is being played out in state after state. In Texas, the Christian Coalition controlled last weekend's convention, which concluded in unity. In Pennsylvania, the old guard's purge of anti-abortion Republicans could yield a third party in the fall. In Virginia, the furor over Ollie North is an extension of this struggle, not a debate over the candidate's probity.
Dole was caught in this intraparty crossfire. Sen. John Warner, Virginia's rich and socially elite Republican senator who abhors his party's new members, approached the minority leader in mid-April. Warner told him that North could not defeat Democratic Sen. Charles Robb but volunteered a way out: Former State Attorney General Marshall Coleman, a twice-beaten GOP nominee for governor, would run as an independent.
At the beginning of June, a gleeful Coleman supporter told me Warner and party elder Paul Laxalt, now a resident of Virginia, had talked Dole into supporting Coleman. Warner, who decided to skip the state convention nominating North, and Dole were in France for the D-day commemoration. From there, on CBS' ``Face the Nation,'' Dole revealed he would meet Coleman and declined to endorse North.
Dole's subsequent decision to back North is attributed by Coleman backers to a telephone call from Robertson. They claim the senator was threatened with lost votes in this week's Iowa presidential straw poll. In fact, Iowa was not mentioned, and Christian Coalition members there are being urged to support ex-Education Secretary William J. Bennett. What's more, by the time Robertson phoned, Dole had met Coleman and given him the sad news.
Dole's phone system had been flooded by calls from angry North partisans. Anything less than a North endorsement would have been suicidal, and even Dole's recovery was a little late. ``The whole episode has done him no good with grass-roots activists,'' said Morton Blackwell, Republican national committeeman from Virginia and a national conservative leader.
Sen. Phil Gramm, Senate Republican campaign committee chairman, did not make Dole's mistake and pledged weeks ago that he would back the party nominee. But both Gramm and his freshman colleague, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, were on the losing side when the Christian Coalition's choice was elected Texas state Republican chairman last weekend.
The convention in Fort Worth has been exaggerated in a media frenzy as a party takeover by fundamentalist religious bigots. In truth, newly elected Chairman Tom Pauken is a Catholic, a former Reagan administration official and a loyal Republican of 30 years' standing.
Quickly recovering, Gramm embraced Pauken and the neophyte Republicans who elected him. ``A lot of people came to the convention for the first time because they are concerned that their freedom is being lost,'' Gramm told me. ``I share that concern.'' The pro-life Christian Coalition, far from seeking to expel anybody, worked hard for pro-choice Hutchison's election last year and is committed to her election to a full term in November.
In contrast is the politics of exclusion played by old-line Republicans in Pennsylvania. Elsie Hillman, a socially prominent multimillionaire who is one of the Republican National Committee's most senior members, wrote checks totaling $314,603 to fund successful campaigns purging pro-life state GOP committee members because they belong to the ``radical right.'' But her triumph could well create a third party, endangering the bid for governor by the Republican nominee, Rep. Tom Ridge.
The Christian Coalition was caught off guard by Hillman but vows it will not happen again. Trying to keep the conservative newcomers out of the party is an exercise in futility. That's why Bob Dole embraced Ollie North and now can only hope he did not wait too long to do it.
by CNB