President Seeks to Downplay Abortion Issue

On the morning of an election day in which Republicans suffered losses in large part because of the party’s anti-abortion stance, President Bush tried to distance the GOP from the issue.

“We have room in our party for people that feel one way, pro-life or pro-choice. The Democratic Party is the same way,” Bush said in his press conference Tuesday.

Bush made clear that he will not back off his own anti-abortion position. But he also made clear that he will not harden his views, praising family planning programs, for example, which have been a major target of many anti-abortion activists.

“I think everyone knows that this is an issue that divides,” Bush said of abortion. “Is it the most important issue for me? Absolutely not.”

Abortion has been a key issue for Democrats over the last several months, and the White House has been looking for a way to calm the fears of moderate abortion-rights advocates within the GOP without upsetting the anti-abortion conservatives whose support Bush needs. Bush appears to have decided that downplaying the issue is his best hope.

Meanwhile, Bush also displayed the strategy his advisers hope to use to diffuse conservative concern on another issue--defense spending. The Pentagon faces some $12.9 billion in spending cuts this year under the Gramm-Rudman budget balancing law, and at least some conservatives are alarmed that after eight years of the Ronald Reagan Administration’s resisting military spending cuts, Bush’s acquiescence in the current round of reductions will set a bad precedent.

Bush’s apparent defense is to blame the problem on Congress.

“I have no choice” but to allow the cuts to go forward, Bush said. Congress, he charged, has failed to send him a deficit-cutting measure that would avoid the defense spending cuts.

However, the Administration does have a choice, and it has been the subject of heated internal debate.

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and several other Cabinet officials have urged Bush to reach an agreement with Congress on a deficit-reduction bill, thereby allowing the automatic cuts to be rescinded. The automatic cuts took effect earlier this fall after the Administration and Congress failed to agree on a deficit-reduction package in time to meet the deadline in the Gramm-Rudman law.

But Budget Director Richard G. Darman has pushed Bush to keep the automatic cuts and avoid a deal with Congress. Darman fears any bill that passes Congress would be loaded down with budget gimmicks that would not, in fact, reduce the deficit.

On Tuesday, Bush said he would sign a deficit-cutting bill, but only if Congress meets a series of requirements that seem unlikely.

Bush adopted the classic strategy of a President riding high in the polls--distancing himself from controversies by blaming Congress and downplaying his own influence.

Asked, for example, what he could do to move his Administration’s initiatives through Congress, Bush said: “Exhort, what else can I do? Veto and exhort.”

“They’ve got the votes up there,” he said, referring to Congress’ Democratic majority. “Look, I’m a realist.”

Bush took a similar position when asked about the negative campaigning that has marked the current round of election contests. “I think everybody would prefer the positives,” he said. “But I’m not sure there’s much a President can do about it.”

The recent emphasis on abortion has been more of a concern to the White House than the negativism of campaign advertisements. Until recently, Republican politicians had assumed abortion would almost never be a major issue in political campaigns against the Democrats. Anti-abortion activists were powerful within the GOP, often influencing primary contests, but the abortion rights side was poorly organized and unable to exert pressure during general elections.

That situation changed radically in July when the Supreme Court opened the way for greater state regulation of abortions. The decision galvanized the abortion rights side of the debate and led to what political consultants say is one of the fastest political turnarounds in U.S. history.

That turnaround was dramatically in evidence Tuesday. Abortion was the chief issue in the two elections for governor, in Virginia and New Jersey, where the Democratic candidates support abortion rights.

Democratic Rep. James J. Florio easily defeated Republican Rep. Jim Courter to become governor of New Jersey and Democrat L. Douglas Wilder was maintaining a narrow lead over Republican J. Marshall Coleman in Virginia.

Many Republicans, concerned for weeks about polls showing their candidates being badly hurt by the abortion issue, have been hoping to reduce its prominence. But Bush has been unwilling to move away from his hard-line anti-abortion stand and has attracted attention to the issue twice this fall with controversial vetoes of major government money bills that contain abortion-related provisions.

Despite his evident desire to quiet the issue, the President made clear Tuesday that he would continue that veto strategy, repeating a threat to veto yet a third money bill later this fall because of abortion. The latest veto threat involves the foreign aid bill, which contains money for international family planning programs. Abortion opponents say the money might be used to aid China’s family planning program, which has been accused of including forced abortions.

Supporters of the bill argue it contains adequate safeguards to keep U.S. money from being misused in the Chinese program, but Bush made clear he did not agree and would veto the bill.

Despite the pressure from GOP moderates, Bush advisers have warned him against altering his position on abortion. Conservatives and abortion opponents mistrust him already, they warn, because he used to support abortion rights. Any sign of wavering now could lead to fierce attacks from the right, Bush aides fear.

Bush favored abortion rights until 1980, when he became Ronald Reagan’s running mate. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, published in March, 1980, Bush contrasted himself with Reagan: “He (Reagan) opposes me for not wanting to amend the Supreme Court decision on abortion: I happen to think it (Roe vs. Wade) was right,” Bush said.

During the 1988 campaign, he said: “I support a constitutional amendment that would reverse the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision. I also support a human life amendment (that would ban all abortions) with an exception for the life of the mother, rape or incest.”