Election Day 1998 was a disappointment for religious right groups, which spent millions to get their supporters out and their favored candidates elected.
"They saw some of their staunchest allies defeated. . . . And many of their challengers didn't win," said a nonpartisan observer, political scientist John C. Green of the University of Akron.The movement fared far worse than in the last off-year election, 1994, and posted one of its worst showings since it emerged in the 1980 campaign. But friends and foes agree it remains a pivotal force in Republican politics.
Religious right favorites lost numerous high-profile races, even in the Southern stronghold of conservative Protestantism. Voters ousted Ala-bama Gov. Fob James, South Carolina Gov. David Beasley and North Carolina Sen. Lauch Faircloth. There were gubernatorial defeats in California, Georgia, and Iowa; and U.S. Senate defeats in Arkansas, California, South Carolina and Washington State.
Christian Coalition analysts said local peculiarities rather than ideological trends explain many of those results.
Looking for bright spots, coalition strategists cited the new governors in Florida, Colorado and Nebraska, and these gains in opposing abortion: victories by three new House Democrats and three new Senate Republicans who agree with the oranization's stance. Also: a net gain of one Senate vote to override President Clinton's veto and ban late-term abortions.
Besides its signature issue of abortion, the Christian Coalition rated congressional candidates on such matters asschool prayer, preventing religious persecution overseas, tax breaks for private school families, affirmative action for homosexuals, needle exchanges for drug abusers and funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Opponents were gleeful.
Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said a backlash against the movement has begun. "It was a humiliating defeat. They've really hit the wall. They have embarrassingly little to show for the millions they poured in."
Mike Lux of People For the American Way said "they put in more resources than with any other election."
The movement's most publicized organization, Christian Coalition, said it spent $1.3 million distributing 35 million voter guides to churches, plus a million postcards and 500,000 phone calls to get supporters to the polls.
Another group with money and moxie, Campaign for Working Families, said it pumped nearly $3 million into 225 races at the federal and state level. CWF boasts of being the nation's sixth richest political action committee. The organization was founded two years ago by the Family Research Council's Gary Bauer, a prospective presidential candidate and ally of Christian radio kingpin James Dobson.
The broadest indicator of the movement's grass-roots impact was the fate of the 115 candidates for the U.S. House endorsed by CWF.
Two-thirds of them won, but most were incumbents. More significantly, CWF choices won eight races for open House seats (in California, Colorado, Kentucky, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin) but lost five (in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Nevada and Washington).
One challenger backed by CWF, Wisconsin's Mark Green, beat an incumbent, but three incumbents backed by the group were ousted: Vince Snowbarger in Kansas; Mike Pappas in New Jersey; and Bill Redmond in New Mexico. Religious right opponents listed a fourth toppled incumbent, Washington's Rick White, who had an 80 percent rating from the Christian Coalition but was not endorsed by CWF. He was wounded by a third-party challenge from the right.
In the post-ballot recriminations, Christian Coalition executive director Randy Tate said the Republicans failed to offer a "clear conservative agenda" to match Democratic proposals, as they had done in 1994.
"Republicans tried to win a campaign based solely on anti-Clinton sentiment," he said.
At CWF, executive director Connie Mackey agreed and expressed dismay that "the Republican Party did so poorly in energizing its base."
Charles Cunningham, the Christian Coalition's national field director, also criticized Republican tactics and contended that the movement remains vital to the party's prospects. "If the religious conservatives weren't there as a firewall, the Republicans would have lost control of the House and would have had a net loss of seats in the Senate."
Lux disputed that interpretation. "The lesson they're drawing is the Republicans didn't follow what we want, so they lost," he said.