POLITICS
For President, George W. if he can control the religious right
BRUCE ANDERSON
ew Hampshire is a good place to have a car crash. Traffic cops, car-hire firms, the other driver: they could not have been more understanding or less interested in trivial questions, such as culpability. They had a point there, for it was obvious where the blame lay: with the weather.
A Telegraph colleague and I had been driving south from Hanover, where we had seen Senator John McCain on the stump and had concluded that he was an engaging fellow with some qualities: about half as many as it ought to take to become Presi- dent of the United States. We were admiring the weather, and the landscape: an endless vista of rock and forest, each tree a filigree of icy twigs. The snow was falling fast and heavily. These were atrocious driving condi- tions, as everyone was quick to reassure us after a skid created a conflict with a Dodge truck, One of those ageless models which have been the mainstay of American corn- merce since the early Hollywood movies, it seemed to be made of girders. As a result of the accident, it will need a little help from the paint-brush, while our car was off to intensive care. Its occupants were merely shaken.
So, suddenly, is the American political process. Over the next ten months, the politi- cians and their parties will spend around $3 billion on electioneering; until the Iowa pri- mary, nobody else seemed to care. 'You're interested in our primaries,' one was told in Boston last weekend: 'Glad somebody is.' But now, as the process gathers momentum, there is more public attention, especially in New Hampshire. Here, the inhabitants are exhibiting their customary quadrennial blend of curiosity and wry amusement as a vice- president, senators and governors struggle though the snow to address small-town meet- ings. 'Retail politics', George W. Bush described it on Tuesday evening, as he answered unscripted questions.
But it is becoming easier to script the eventual outcome. It has always seemed probable that Governor Bush and Vice- President Gore would win the principal presidential nominations; that is now almost a certainty. It is also possible to predict the eventual winner, though the contest will be closer than once seemed likely.
A few months ago, Republicans were relaxed over the prospect of a Gore candi- dacy, reserving their anxieties for Bill Bradley. But that assessment has not stood the test of events. 'If anyone tells you that Ronald Reagan is not a good campaigner,' said George Bush at the Republican Con- vention in 1980, 'you refer them to me.' Bill Bradley cannot stand Al Gore, so is unlikely to pay such a generous tribute, but it would be equally just.
Mr Gore is an effective campaigner and he has one advantage over the Republicans. His own Democratic vote — liberals, organ- ised labour, blacks — is solid. It is far too small to elect him to the presidency, but he can join the battle for uncommitted votes from a secure base. That is more of a prob- lem for George W. Bush, who cannot count on the undivided loyalty of the conservative right or the religious right. This is partly because of his name. On both social and economic questions, George W. is signifi- cantly more right-wing than his father, but a lot of conservatives distrust the Bush genes. Some of those conservatives are not pre- pared to temporise, even to secure victory.
In part, this is due to President Clinton. After two presidential terms from a man whom they despise, some conservatives are now prepared to make a Republican victory their highest priority. But not all. Such is their contempt for Mr Clinton and their incomprehension of other Americans' will- ingness to tolerate him, that some other con- servatives have become even more intransi- gent in their zealotry; even more determined to subject Republican candidates to stringent ideological scrutiny, especially on abortion.
To the religious right, abortion is murder, so they regard it as the most important issue facing the nation and will not accept the obvious compromise: to return the issue to individual state legislatures. In 1973, at the high point of liberal judicial activism, the Supreme Court decided — in Roe v. Wade — that there was a constitutional right to an abortion. That was an outrageous piece of constitutional perversion, and the religious right are determined not only to reverse Roe v. Wade but to impose a constitutional ban on abortion. Some of them would not even make an exemption for rape, incest or a mother in mortal danger from pregnancy.
State rights on abortion would be accept- able to a substantial majority of American voters, but a constitutional prohibition is not only less popular, it is not even as popular as the opinion polls suggest. There are a lot of American women who would never carry a 'right to choose' banner and who will tell their husbands, pastors and pollsters that they are in favour of a right to life. Such persons would rather that their daughters were chaste before marriage and faithful within it, but they know that sex has its com- plexities. They might not object if their state banned abortion; they would rather that any such embarrassment occurred a long way from home. But they want it available, somewhere.
The abortion controversy also inflames many middle Americans' anxieties about the religious right; which is widely credited with massive political muscle. This enables Democrats to claim that a Republican victory would mean witch-burnings within months if not weeks. That, of course, is nonsense: the American religious right is wholly ineffectual as a political force. No one should even begin to take it seriously as long as it is ille- gal to begin the state-school day with a prayer, but legal to carry out a partial-birth abortion, which involves killing a baby even as it is trying to emerge from the womb. The principal intolerance in American society comes not from the religious right, but from politically correct liberals. But the right does have a negative capability. If it makes abor- tion a crucial issue at this year's election, it could help to secure the election of Presi- dent Gore, reinforced by Senator Hillary Clinton.
Vice-President Gore is a slick campaigner who will ruthlessly exploit every weakness which his opponents offer him. But he has a problem. He is dislikeable — unlike George Bush II. In 1980, when matters seemed equally uncertain, one of the wisest Ameri- can political pundits made an acute observa- tion. 'During this campaign,' said Ben Wat- tenberg, 'despite the campaign staffs' best efforts, there will be one or two moments of political nakedness, when the voters see the candidates as they really are. Those will have a crucial effect on the outcome.'
Mr Wattenberg was right. In that year's presidential debates, Ronald Reagan was gracious, Jimmy Carter mean-minded. Al Gore has it in him to be equally mean- minded, while George W., like his father, is gracious, much better at projecting himself. In Bedford, New Hampshire, last Tues- day, Governor Bush arrived with a quasi- presidential entourage and a proto-presi- dential aura. It is too early to be sure, but he looked and sounded like a winner.
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