A Tale of Two Elections

It’s not enough to win the election. You also have to win the interpretation. Republicans won all the big races last week. Now moderate and conservative Republicans are squabbling over the interpretation.

The religious right has made the strongest claim. Christian conservatives backed Republican James S. Gilmore, who won a big victory in the race for governor of Virginia and carried a GOP lieutenant governor and attorney general with him for the first time in this century. The religious right opposed GOP Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who barely survived her reelection bid in New Jersey.

“The message emanating from New Jersey was simple: Betray your base, which for the Republicans includes a strong pro-life pillar, and the bottom falls out,” Christian Coalition executive director Randy Tate said Wednesday. But the abortion issue was not a big factor in either Virginia or New Jersey. In New Jersey, where both Whitman and her Democratic opponent supported abortion rights, just 3% of the voters said abortion was their top concern, according to exit polls. Even in Virginia, only 11% of voters named abortion as a major issue.

That was good news for Gilmore. He is a strong abortion opponent, while 63% of Virginia voters interviewed on Tuesday said they felt abortion should remain legal. Back in 1989, abortion was the driving issue in the race for governor of Virginia. Just a few months earlier, the Supreme Court had handed down a decision inviting states to pass abortion restrictions. Many voters believed abortion rights were threatened. Virginians elected Douglas Wilder, the only African American ever elected governor of any state, because he promised to protect abortion rights.

Now, Virginians seem to have reversed themselves. Not only is Gilmore anti-abortion, but he also has close ties to Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. In the election day exit poll, two-thirds of Virginia voters expressed a negative opinion of Robertson. The evidence suggests that Gilmore won in spite of his ties to the religious right.

But that’s not the whole story. The vast majority of Viriginia voters, almost 90%, were not part of the religious right. Among non-religious-right voters, the race for governor was a dead heat. Among religious-right voters, however, Gilmore beat Democrat Don Beyer 10 to 1. Christian conservatives gave Gilmore his margin of victory. That evidence suggests Gilmore won because of his ties to the religious right.

Can both claims be true? Paradoxically, yes. Gilmore won the enthusiastic support of religious-right voters because of his views on abortion. He held his own with other voters in spite of his views on abortion. He did it with a clever ploy: He accepted reality.

Gilmore acknowledged that the Supreme Court has held abortion to be legal under the Constitution and, as governor, he could not change that. By accepting the status quo, he defused concerns that he might threaten abortion rights. Almost half of those who voted for Gilmore said they wanted abortion kept legal. They voted for him for other reasons, like his opposition to Virginia’s highly unpopular personal property tax on automobiles, which Gilmore made the core issue in his campaign.

Gilmore had to motivate religious-right voters without alienating other voters. He did it by holding true to his principles while being careful to communicate that he intended no threat to those who disagreed with him. It was a clever balancing act. It worked. And it provides a model for religious-right candidates all over the country.

It’s not really a new model. It goes all the way back to Ronald Reagan. Reagan kept a solid base of conservatives by holding fast to his principles. At the same time, he reassured other voters that he would not threaten them. They could vote for Reagan even though they disagreed with him on issues like abortion.

It’s the magic combination: principled but non-threatening. The result in Virginia was ironic. In a state where Robertson is not popular and abortion rights are, the religious right can claim credit for Gilmore’s victory.

Moderate Republicans like Whitman have to pull off an equally difficult balancing act. They have to compete for the moderate vote without alienating their conservative base, which is bound to be suspicious. In New Jersey last week, she barely pulled it off.

Liberals were not there for her. They went heavily for her opponent. Whitman also lost moderate voters by a narrow margin. In heavily suburban states like New Jersey, moderates are a majority. But they are not a secure base, particularly in northeastern states. The northeast is the homeland of Volvo Republicans like Whitman and former Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld: high-income, well-educated, socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

Those voters have become increasingly distrustful of a Republican Party dominated by aggressively conservative Southerners like Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. President Bill Clinton has been doing everything he can to go after Volvo Republicans. He named one to his Cabinet (Defense Secretary William S. Cohen).

Why is Clinton targeting that rather small constituency? Because they have money. Because they are turning the Northeast into the Democratic Party’s base. And, most of all, because Clinton wants to push the Democratic Party in their direction--socially liberal, fiscally conservative. Clinton and Al Gore have become ardent defenders of a balanced budget and gay rights. Democrats have long suspected that, way down deep, they are Volvo Republicans. The payoff is that moderate, suburban voters in the Northeast have been trending Democratic. That’s making it harder and harder for GOP candidates like Whitman to survive.

Whitman won because she held on to conservatives. But she did seven points worse among conservatives this year than she did four years ago. Eight percent of conservatives cast a protest vote for a third-party candidate. Thus, the New Jersey paradox: Conservatives saved her, but they nearly destroyed her.

Whitman enraged conservatives by opposing a ban on late-term abortions sent to her by the state legislature. That decision did not win her much support from liberals and moderates. But it caused her to experience nearly fatal losses among conservatives.

Whitman’s experience in New Jersey was the opposite of Gilmore’s in Virginia. Gilmore held conservatives without threatening moderates. Whitman lost moderates while antagonizing conservatives. The Christian Coalition claimed, “It was a good day for conservatives who stood on principle.” They were right.*