THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 4, 1995 TAG: 9511040278
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Election '95
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 152 lines
While politicians dump their money into a last-minute advertising blitz this weekend, the Chesapeake-based Christian Coalition is avoiding the costs of airtime by getting members to deliver political fliers into the nation's church pews in time for Sunday services.
The fliers, which the coalition calls ``voter guides,'' are timed for release two days before the election. They have helped the grassroots coalition, founded in 1989 by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, soar to 1.7 million members, making it a conservative kingmaker.
The guides are simple and short: 8-by-5-inch sheets display opposing candidates' views on a narrow band of issues. For this year's Virginia General Assembly races, those issues include parental notification when teenagers seek abortions, riverboat gambling, prayer in school and tax breaks.
The coalition says its guides are educational and nonpartisan, in keeping with its tax-exempt status. Critics - particularly Democrats who routinely fare poorly in them - say the guides smack of partisan politics and their brevity distorts issues.
``It's not that people object to Christians and people of faith being involved in the public square,'' said Gail Nardi, director of communications for Virginia's Democratic Party. ``This is about the pretext, the ruse, that the coalition's voter guides are nonpartisan. They behave as an arm of the Republican party in Virginia and nationwide.''
The coalitions' guides mainly reach evangelical Christians or congregations that view themselves as strongly conservative. But many pastors, including those in the Catholic and Episcopal churches of Virginia, bar their doors to the guides, saying they bring partisan politics into a place of worship.
No estimate was immediately available of how many fliers were to be distributed in Hampton Roads. The Christian Coalition headquarters did not respond to calls this week asking for information about the effort.
Coalition members are instructed to keep the guides under wraps until they drop them off at churches, so that the impact is not diluted through early debate in the media.
The fierceness of the debate over the fairness of the guides is fueled by one point on which fans and critics agree: The guides really work.
For a book to be published in March, Larry J. Sabato, a University of Virginia professor of political science, recently interviewed Democrats defeated in the 1994 GOP landslide.
Democrats repeatedly cited the coalition's guides as a top reason for their defeat - second only to voter dissatisfaction with President Clinton, he said. ``The guides are extremely, extremely effective.''
While politicians' messages get jumbled in with television ads and junk mail, the coalition's guides come through a trusted organization, often with the added benefit of praise from a pastor, Sabato said.
``When you receive a guide like that in church, it has an added increment of moral credibility,'' he said. ``It is not being handed out by grubby politicians.''
The coalition's executive director, Ralph Reed, claimed last year that the guides helped deliver the evangelical vote in that year's election, providing the margin for victory that gave Republicans control of Congress.
Elsewhere in Virginia, some Christian moderates believe the guides have been so effective that they're taking up the tactic themselves.
The Interfaith Alliance, a group formed last year by moderate Christian and Jewish clergy, is distributing election guides explicitly designed to counteract the coalition's influence in northern Virginia races.
About 20,000 of the alliance's guides will be distributed in each of two state Senate districts, primarily through mail and handing them out at shopping centers and polling places, but the group can't afford to target races elsewhere in the state.
The guides of the coalition and the alliance are similar in one way: There are no shades of gray. Candidates' stands fall within a limited spectrum of choices: Support, oppose, no response or position unknown. Issues are summed up in pithy phrases, with no reference to specific bills or public statements.
While that style gives the guides a clear, quick punch, it can create confusion about what is being judged.
In some Norfolk races, for example, the coalition's guide rates Assembly candidates on the issue of ``state tax relief for families.'' Officials at state Republican and Democratic party headquarters said they believed that was a reference to Gov. George F. Allen's proposal to raise the personal exemption from $800 to $2,400 - but neither party was sure.
Reed, seeking to expand the coalition's reach, has worked recently at forming new alliances, including starting a Catholic wing this fall, with one goal being to get the guides into Catholic churches.
Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of the Richmond diocese, which includes Hampton Roads, has advised priests to decline material from all outside groups, including the coalition. Bishop Frank Vest, of the Episcopal diocese of Southern Virginia, shares that sentiment.
``As soon as churches say that this candidate or this party is `the right one,' then you cannot avoid implying that one candidate or party is on the side of God and the others are not,'' Vest said. ``Therefore, we are opposed to distribution of voter guides or partisan politics if it is done through the church.''
However, Vest added, ``We fully believe that individuals should be deeply involved in politics, as individuals.''
Coalition members are persistent, even when church leaders repeatedly decline. The Rev. James Cobb, who leads the 800-member First Lutheran Church in Norfolk, said he is asked to hand out the coalition's voter guides every year, though he has never agreed. ``There are no Christian positions on issues,'' he said. ``There are Christians who take positions . . . and they can take opposite positions.''
But plenty of Hampton Roads churches have accepted the coalition's guides, from the 4,000-member Atlantic Shores Baptist Church to the 200-member Landstown Community Church, which is affiliated with the Mennonites but attracts people from many faith backgrounds.
George Faatz, vice chairman of the coalition's Hampton Roads chapter and a member of Landstown Community Church, says his fellow congregants consult the guides as one source of information. The church's pastor, Noah Stoltzfus, said he often mentions that the guides are available.
Faatz gets irate about accusations that the coalition is partisan. He points out that the local chapter invited all candidates to come and speak at the past two monthly meetings, before an audience which usually ranges in size from 25 to 50. Most of the Democrats, he said, stayed away.
``Can you imagine (House Speaker) Tom Moss coming to visit us?'' Faatz laughs, mentioning the region's most prominent Democrat. ``He's against us.'' He adds, more seriously, ``We're open. We're polite. We're interested in ideas and being an influence for good in the community.''
Faatz and his wife, Fran, say they plan to distribute the voter guides Sunday, and help out the candidates they favor by working at polling places on Tuesday.
Linda Cruciano, a Virginia Beach mother of three who also belongs to the chapter, says she expects to do the same - though by Thursday she still hadn't seen the guides or received her church drop-off list.
Cruciano says she's never gotten any complaints from people who prefer no politics mixed with their Sunday prayers. In fact, she said, several people have already asked her when the guides are coming out this year. She expects some will have them in hand when they get ready to vote.
``The very first time I ever got one myself, I was able to read down the questions and see who stood for what I stood for,'' she said. ``I took it to the polls with me.'' MEMO: COMMENTS
George Faatz, vice chairman of the Christian Coalition's Hampton
Roads chapter: ``We're open. We're polite. We're interested in ideas and
being an influence for good in the community.''
Episcopal Bishop Frank Vest: ``As soon as churches say that this
candidate or this party is `the right one,' then you cannot avoid
implying that one candidate or party is on the side of God and the
others are not.''
The Rev. James Cobb, pastor of First Lutheran Church in
Norfolk:``There are no Christian positions on issues. There are
Christians who take positions. . . and they can take opposite
positions.''
Linda Cruciano, a Virginia Beach mother of three and Christian
Coalition volunteer: ``The very first time I ever got one myself, I was
able to read down the questions and see who stood for what I stood for.
I took it to the polls with me.''
KEYWORDS: VOTER GUIDE RELIGION AND POLITICS by CNB