Religious Extremists Run GOP, Gore Says : Campaign: Democrat tells Illinois audience that conservative activists are more interested in their social agenda than in curing economic ills.

In an often competitive state that is leaning Democratic, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore told an audience at the annual Illinois State Fair on Thursday that the Republican Party has been taken over by religious extremists who are more concerned with their social issues than the problems of working people.

With rolled-up shirt sleeves, on an old-fashioned flag-bedecked bandstand, the Democratic vice presidential nominee seized on Thursday’s announcement that weekly unemployment figures had seen their steepest rise in a decade.

“Why do you think President Bush and (Vice President) Dan Quayle are talking about Hillary Clinton and not the economy?” Gore asked. “That’s the reason why. It’s because they’ve run the economy into the ground and they can’t talk about the real issues.”

Gore said conservative activists at the Republican National Convention in Houston--namely Phyllis Schlafly, Patrick J. Buchanan and Jerry Falwell--have alienated many voters who do not support the litmus test issues they have advocated.

“Who are they to say they’re Americans and the people who disagree with their religious war are not Americans?” Gore asked. “This is the time to reject their extremist politics.”

Illinois, with its 22 electoral votes, frequently proves to be a crucial state in presidential races, and it has a history of being a swing state. Its major population center--Chicago--is solidly Democratic, but Republicans traditionally do well in the state’s suburban and rural areas.

Recent statewide polls have shown the Democratic ticket with a lead well into double digits. But the surveys were taken before this week’s GOP convention.

Thursday, Gore spent nearly an hour surrounded by a surging crowd as he toured the fairgrounds, shaking hands along a rope line and slapping high-fives with kids on their parents’ shoulders.

The rally was held under bright blue skies in the fairground’s ethnic village, where the aromas of food wafted through the crowd.

Gore was joined on the bandstand for the “Day of Hope” rally by Democratic National Committee Chairman Ronald H. Brown and the party’s U.S. Senate nominee in Illinois, Carol Moseley Braun.

Ever since the Democratic National Convention in New York, Braun has run a campaign closely tied to Democratic nominee Bill Clinton and his running mate, Gore. Illinois Democrats, who were gathered in Springfield for their party’s state convention, said they were optimistic that Braun will help the White House ticket win in Illinois, and vice versa.

“If people don’t vote for Carol, Clinton won’t win,” said Elliotte Green, a Chicago Democrat at the fair.

After working on several elections, including losses and victories, however, the delegates said they sense that things are going their way this year.

“I can feel victory in the air,” said Chicagoan Constance Howard, a state committee member at the fair.

Some of the state’s largest ethanol producers said Clinton and Gore may also have received a boost from the Bush Administration’s apparent reluctance to support increased use of ethanol as an automotive fuel.

Farmers who produce the corn for ethanol production said one out of every six rows of corn grown in the state is used for ethanol, and the amount could triple if the Clean Air Act is amended to support increased use of the alternative fuel.

Gore told officials from the state’s Corn Growers Assn. that he and Clinton support greater use of ethanol.