Litmus Test Politics: ’88 Candidates Wary in Wooing of Special Interests

“No more interest group litmus tests.”

That is what Democrats vowed after their 1984 standard-bearer, Walter F. Mondale, was labeled a patsy for catering to the demands of labor unions, teachers and other special interests who helped him win the nomination.

The longer the campaign for the 1988 Democratic nomination goes on, however, the clearer it becomes that interest group leaders have no intention of taking a back seat in the process, and the candidates are finding it hard to hold them at arm’s length. What’s more, the problem is by no means confined to the Democrats. Right-wing groups, relatively dormant in the GOP during President Reagan’s conservative stewardship, are now flexing their muscles and demanding pledges of allegiance from Reagan’s would-be successors.

Presidential contenders of both parties thus face the same dilemma: candidates who rebuff special interests may lose vital support in the nominating caucuses and primaries, where small but dedicated groups can swing considerable weight, yet candidates who court the groups may seem to give up their independence and alienate the broad center whose support is vital in November.

A Bipartisan Problem

Evidence of the problem can be found in the current experience of both major parties:

--Complaining about Democratic candidates, Irene Natividad, chair of the nominally bipartisan but overwhelmingly Democratic National Women’s Political Caucus, declared at that group’s recent convention: “We have suffered whisker burns from the lip service (Democrats) have paid to the sharing of power.”

When four 1988 Democratic presidential contenders showed up to voice support for most of the causes close to the caucus members’ hearts, they got an earful from Natividad about the folly of taking for granted the feminist support that helped the Democrats win the Senate in 1986. “We must remind the Democratic Party that it is the winning margin provided by women’s votes that has loaned them this power,” she said, “and, make no mistake: ours is not an interest-free loan.”

--”Certainly, the interest groups in the Republican Party have been lying low because of the dominance of Reagan and the White House,” said Richard A. Viguerie, the right-wing political mail specialist whose clients include about 35 conservative groups. Now, as potential successors woo Reagan’s longtime supporters, “most interest groups are starting to come alive,” he added.

‘New Right’ on Horizon

John Petrocik, a specialist in political parties at UCLA, warned that “the Republicans may catch some of the Democratic disease from these New Right groups.” Indeed, conservative columnist George Will has already derided Vice President George Bush, the GOP front-runner for 1988, as a “lap dog . . . panting along the Mondale trail” for his wooing of conservative groups.

To some scholars and political operatives, such criticism, while it poses a real problem for candidates, is not entirely fair. UCLA’s Petrocik describes the interest groups as “intermediaries” who have taken the place of the old-fashioned political bosses.

“Years ago, the bosses negotiated on behalf of interest groups,” he said. “Now the bosses are gone and the intermediaries are the groups themselves.”

Part of the difficulty now, Petrocik noted, is that in the past “they negotiated these things without public debate. Now these negotiations take place in public.”

“The truth is that we are all members of several interest groups,” said Edward Lazarus of Information Associates, a Democratic polling firm. The problem for candidates, Lazarus pointed out, is that few voters think of themselves that way.

Mondale’s Predicament

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a senior consultant to Sen. Bob Dole’s Republican presidential campaign, said he “felt sorry” for Mondale when the former vice president was criticized during the 1984 campaign. In seeking and gaining the controversial endorsements for his nomination, Keene said, Mondale was only following the rules of our political system.

“The way politicians operate in a pluralistic society is if you are a candidate, you seek the support of interest groups so that they can help you get elected,” Keene said. “And if you are an interest group, you support a candidate so you can get people on your side in office.”

Fairly or not, Mondale suffered because of the endorsements. In part, this was because Mondale was so heavily favored that no one else got any endorsements. In part, it was because the suspicions about interest-group pressure jibed with the frequent criticism that Mondale was somehow lacking in backbone.

“In 1984, Mondale was collecting endorsements from this group and that group, the main one being labor,” recalled Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, one of the leaders in the Democratic competition for 1988. “And a perception was created that all of these groups had the ability to tell him what to do. I don’t think they did, but the perception was there.”

For 1988, some interest groups are trying to soften their approach, at least enough to improve the public’s perception of their roles, though the changes so far appear modest.

Bork Debate as Example

The nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court provides an example of how all this works in practice.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings have been marked by an unusually high level of debate over substantive issues, but special-interest factions in both parties and on both sides of the ideological spectrum are using the battle as a warm up for the 1988 election campaign. It has given such groups a chance to test the enthusiasm of their members and the mettles of presidential contenders who are seeking their support.

“The Bork nomination is a litmus test for both parties,” said Chris Hamel, director of former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt’s Democratic presidential campaign in Iowa. “In both parties, it’s a chance to empathize with important constituencies and interest groups.”

Among the Democrats, Babbitt, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, Gephardt and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson have opposed the Bork nomination. Only Illinois Sen. Paul Simon and Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. withheld early judgment. Last week, as the hearings concluded, Simon--who had expressed reservations about the nomination from the beginning--announced that he would oppose confirmation of Bork.

On the Republican side, two candidates in particular--Senate Minority Leader Dole of Kansas and New York’s Rep. Jack Kemp--have been outspoken in defending Bork against his foes.

Broad Political Labels

Interest groups come in all political shapes and sizes. Some, such as the Americans for Democratic Action on the left and the American Conservative Union on the right, are concerned with a broad range of issues.

Others concentrate on a particular area of concern, such as protecting the environment or holding down taxes, or a single issue such as gun control laws. The intense emotions stirred by some issues have drawn activists to both sides of the controversy. Perhaps the most notable example of such an issue is abortion.

Some interest groups serve mainly to focus public attention on a particular controversy, and thus on the candidates who side with them. Other groups offer candidates more direct help--in raising funds and mobilizing political support, for example, strengths that have taken on greater importance in recent years, with the steady decline of political parties’ abilities to perform these functions.

Robertson Got Help

The potency of interest groups has already been demonstrated on the Republican side by conservative Christian forces who helped television evangelist-turned-candidate Pat Robertson win key organizing tests, in a much-publicized Iowa straw poll and in the Michigan competition for convention delegates.

Ken Melley, political director of the National Education Assn., which is now looking over the credentials of presidential contenders in both parties, said that his organization’s Republican members--600,000 of a total of 1.9 million--could help the other GOP candidates compete with Robertson in such organizational struggles.

Mobilizing Service

“They don’t have the on-the-ground structure to deliver people to caucuses,” he said of Robertson’s GOP rivals. “We have the organization to call people up, get them on buses and get them out to vote.”

Many Democratic leaders say that the interest-group problem will be greatly lessened for their party in 1988, because there is no clear front-runner and thus no obvious beneficiary of interest-group support.

The AFL-CIO, considered the most politically potent of all interest groups because of its 13 million members and its considerable financial resources, endorsed Mondale more than a year before the 1984 election, to heighten its impact on the campaign. For the 1988 campaign, the federation leaders, still uncertain of their choice, have decided to delay their endorsement, perhaps until after the Iowa and New Hampshire delegate contests in February.

The National Education Assn., considered second only to the AFL-CIO in interest group power within the Democratic Party, is also having trouble achieving consensus on a candidate. Most support is divided among four candidates--Dukakis, Gephardt, Simon and Jackson. According to Ken Melley, the NEA is considering making a multiple endorsement in December, a solution that would allow state affiliates to choose the candidates they want to back.

One factor apparently easing tension between interest groups and Democratic candidates is that some of the groups--after two landslide victories for the Republicans--are trying to take a less demanding and pragmatic approach to the 1988 presidential candidates.

‘Who Can Win?’

“They are asking who can win,” Gephardt said. “From their viewpoint, differences between the Democratic candidates are slight, compared with differences all of us have with Republicans.”

Tennessee’s Gore agreed: “I’m finding that the groups within the Democratic Party that formerly insisted on strict litmus tests are now consciously broadening their focus and making it easier to pass muster,” he said. “They know litmus tests are of little use if candidates who pass them go on to lose the general election.”

After Gore made his campaign pitch to a labor group recently, he said, the first question asked of him--from the woman who served as director of minority and women’s issues for the union--was: “How can we get away from appearing to be interested only in a narrow interest agenda?”

Gore added: “Her motivation was an intense desire to win.”

In apparent recognition of the problem, the NEA changed its endorsement procedure for 1988. In addition to asking candidates for their positions on NEA’s legislative agenda, the candidates were asked to give their views on federal priorities for education and plans for improving education.

The revised procedure, said Melley, makes his organization seem less “selfish,” and instead, “puts us in the posture of contributing to the educational debate.”

Evidence of Pressures

For all the talk about a new look for 1988, however, the Democratic contest already has shown that interest groups are applying pressure on specific issues and that, in some cases, candidates are agreeing to go along. Some interest group activists, Gephardt said, still put candidates on the spot on one issue or another, by saying: “ ‘This is my litmus test. If you’re not foursquare on this issue, I’ll find somebody who is.’ ”

One such subject is abortion, an issue on which Gephardt said he “made both sides mad” as he was gearing up to run for President: he dropped his longstanding support of a constitutional amendment to allow abortion to be outlawed, but continued to oppose federal funds for Medicaid abortions.

During a private meeting at the Women’s Political Caucus convention, Gephardt recalls, some pro-choice activists offered to support his candidacy, but only if he would back the Medicaid coverage.

“ ‘And I don’t mean a little bit for it,’ ” Gephardt said he was told. “ ‘That’s my issue. That’s all I care about.’ ”

“I can’t help you,” Gephardt said he replied.

At the same convention, Gore, who has sought to make a point about his independence, nevertheless did what he could to ingratiate himself with the feminists.

When asked about his position on the Bork nomination, Gore said he had not yet made up his mind because “I believe it is important to hear both sides.”

But he quickly reassured his anti-Bork listeners by reminding them: “That’s what I did when Justice (William H.) Rehnquist was nominated to be chief justice, and I became one of only two Southern senators to vote against the confirmation of Chief Justice Rehnquist.”

Anti-Abortion Luncheon

Meanwhile, the GOP campaign also increasingly provides evidence of interaction between candidates and interest groups. Last month, Dole and Kemp joined Robertson in bidding for the support of anti-abortion voters at an Iowans for Life luncheon in Des Moines.

Afterward, Cecelia Zenti, executive director of the group, said all three scored well by supporting reversal of the 1973 Supreme Court decision that women have a right to abortion.

Bush sent a surrogate to outline his view that abortion should be legal for victims of rape and incest, so “he’s not so pure,” Zenti said. “That would indicate a need for education.” Another Republican candidate, former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., was not even invited to the lunch because he is considered “very pro-choice,” Zenti explained.

Zenti said that the other no-show, Delaware’s former Gov. Pierre (Pete) S. du Pont IV, is viewed skeptically by the anti-abortion forces because of his voting record as a congressman. Zenti acknowledged, though, that Du Pont is “trying to make moves our way.”

While GOP interest groups can be just as demanding and self-absorbed as their Democratic counterparts, Republicans claim they are spared the negative reactions Democrats get because the Republican groups are more in tune with the country.

Religion in Politics

“There are many special interest groups on the Republican side,” said Viguerie, among them conservative churches and “born-again” Christians, “but Reagan embracing their general philosophy of morality doesn’t scare people like Mondale embracing the labor union bosses.”

Viguerie, who argues that Republicans need the conservative Christians to become the majority party, contends: “No one has yet made a case that being conservative on religious issues hurts candidates.”

But John Deardourff, a consultant to moderate Republican candidates such as Gerald R. Ford and Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson, said that Viguerie is “dead wrong.” As Deardourff sees it, the increased influence on the GOP of conservative Christians with their stern view of morality could drive away “a great many independent, centrist voters.”

In that case, he warned: “What you end up with is a party with a very distorted constituency.”