Articles: Keystone Suburbs
Strategy Could Turn Women Off;
Pitch on religious issues poses risks for Bush
Lawrence C. Levy
Newsday
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
LEVITTOWN, Pa.
Ellen Ely takes her Christianity seriously. She believes she lives her life according to the Gospel of Jesus and is deeply involved in the spiritual life of the United Christian Church, a fixture in this famous early suburb.
Ely's faith makes her a prime target of President George W. Bush's campaign. He is counting on religious voters - especially women - to win a state that Democrat John Kerry can't afford to lose. And unlike 2000, when he lost here by four points, Bush operatives have been organizing almost pew by pew.
But Ely is not in Bush's Amen choir. In fact, it's Ely's faith, she says, that keeps her from even considering Bush on Election Day.
"I resent his attempt to monopolize ownership of spiritual values," Ely said Sunday after services in the small chapel. "Mine include all the teachings of Jesus, which include feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and healing the sick and accepting all people. His values include expanding corporate welfare and blocking programs for the poor."
Ely's refusal to buy into criticisms of Kerry for backing abortion rights and opposing a constitutional ban on gay marriage signals trouble for Bush's strategy, particularly in the socially moderate suburbs that are the key to the Key-stone State.
Bush's "values" push has persuaded some Democrats. "Abortion is above all other issues for me," Sandy Beveridge said at her door. "I don't think I can vote for Kerry."
But Bush is engaged in a risky balancing act. As he tries to drive up his numbers among religious conservatives, as he did with a recent speech near here condemning Kerry for his vote against a ban on "partial birth abortion," Bush could continue to turn off the suburban women who abandoned his party in the last three presidential elections. These "swing" voters recoiled from the religious tone of the 1992 convention and the GOP's heavy tilt to the right on social issues, such as abortion and stem-cell research.
So far, based on polls and what I've seen in five visits to the Philadelphia suburbs since September, Kerry is holding most of these voters for his party. Like Bill Clinton, whose appearance in Philadelphia this week gave Kerry a big boost, he has forged a formidable urban-suburban voting bloc.
Kerry hasn't conceded the "values" turf. After his strong debates, Kerry has kept the momentum going with ads hit-ting Bush on the Iraq war and the economy. Along with independent groups, such as America Coming Together, Kerry has put together a powerful ground game of his own to bring voters to the polls. It, too, has targeted churches known for social activism and opposition to war. And Kerry himself has talked more openly about his faith on the stump and at prayer services.
Bush's targeting of religious voters runs the same risk of backfiring, as do his efforts to turn "soccer moms" into "security moms" more concerned about protecting their families from terrorism than about any social or economic issue.
If playing up his conservative policies to win some voters could remind others why they don't like him, then trying to scare back moderates by linking Iraq to the fight against terrorism could remind them of how unhappy they are with his management of the war. And the war has proved as big a turnoff for suburban women as his right-wing policies.
Legitimate questions about whether Bush is basing his decisions on faith and not facts have made it riskier still to turn his campaign into a religious crusade. Well-educated suburbanites live in "the reality world," a Bush aide said, and don't accept much on faith, including politicians.
But this is part of Bush's Plan B - finally abandoning efforts to woo moderates with talk about "compassionate con-servatism" and trying to win with an expanded right-wing base.
As part of his appeal to the state's huge Catholic population, Bush recently was granted an audience with Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, who, like many bishops, had said Catholics had "a duty and responsibility" to back candi-dates who upheld church teachings on "life" issues.
Kerry's response was to say he "respects" his church and its leaders, "but I respectfully disagree."
Imagine this: Forty-four years after John F. Kennedy had to go to tortuous lengths to convince voters he wouldn't be too Catholic, Kerry has had to prove that he is just Catholic enough.
But, ironically, one of the biggest problems for Bush, aides acknowledge, is that Kerry himself is Catholic. "Did you know John Kerry voted to allow partial birth abortion?" a caller at Bush's Radnor headquarters told a woman. "Well, it's true. Most people think that, because he's Catholic, he is right on our issues. But we have to tell them he's not!"
Bush has volunteers in every one of the state's 1,000 Catholic parishes. This weekend, as part of a huge get-out-the-vote effort that didn't exist in 2000, volunteers will hand out pamphlets at churches that compare the candidates' positions on a variety of issues, from abortion to tax cuts for children in religious schools.
"If you follow the teachings of the Catholic church, you can't vote for Kerry," said Rob Gleason, who runs Bush's Catholic outreach in Pennsylvania. "I was stunned that [Al] Gore got the majority of Catholic votes here. We're doing every thing we can to make sure that doesn't happen again."
That won't work with Louise Stiller, 87, a Republican Catholic from West Chester. "I won't let a priest tell me how to live my life," she said, "or how to vote."
Worried about rifts in their congregations or their tax-exempt status, many priests and ministers won't openly support a candidate (although many make their preferences known). Still, Bush has a prayer here in part because of inroads with Democratic Catholics and evangelicals.
If Bush wins this state, and thus the presidency, he literally can thank God - and thousands of volunteers who spread his and Bush's word. It would mean Bush's religious strategy netted more new voters than it repelled. It would mean his gamble paid off.
Copyright, 2004, Newsday. Reprinted with permission.