Gore Goeth Forth With GOP Issue

Praise the Lord and pass the focus group results. Al Gore has found religion.

Despite once referring to the religious right as “the extra chromosome right wing,” the vice president has decided he wants God to be his co-pilot in trying to coax a moribund presidential campaign off the ground. Gore’s decision to include mention of religion, God and the Bible in recent speeches is based, of course, on polls taken since the school shootings in Colorado and Georgia that showed more Americans favoring a renewed emphasis on God in society.

Gore’s evocation of religion has already resulted in one miracle: He’s been able to do it so far with a straight face. But it’s a face that deserves prominent display in the Hypocrites Hall of Fame.

In one speech, referring to the difference between right and wrong, he said, “If you do not do well, sin lyeth at your door.” When a liberal Democrat quotes from the book of Genesis, something’s up. And what’s up was made clear by Elaine Kamarck, Gore’s senior policy advisor, who bragged, “The Democratic Party is going to take back God this time.” I’m sure God is looking forward to receiving his delegate badge for the party’s 2000 national convention in Los Angeles.

What Kamarck means is that the Democrats will try to steal the religion issue from the Republicans, just as they have parlayed the theft of family values, welfare reform, the death penalty, the balanced budget and other GOP issues into two terms in the White House. The difference between today’s Democrats and those in 1992 is that they are now so emboldened by the success of past underhanded tactics, they come right out and announce future deviousness in advance.

If polls and focus groups show the public wants more God, then more God is what the Democrats will serve up. Never mind that this is the party that has been quick to shout about separation of church and state if a Republican so much as dares say “God bless you” after somebody sneezes.

As a mostly hollow vessel with no true beliefs beyond his environmental extremism, Gore is even more likely than Bill Clinton to leap in whatever direction the polls indicate.

If focus group research revealed that voters wanted a president more like Ally McBeal, he would get skinny, put on a short skirt and adopt a dancing baby as his campaign symbol.

As Gore’s sudden public embrace of religion apart from Buddhist temples reveals, there is little he would not do to move his solar panels into the Oval Office.

Will he get away with so phony and transparent a ploy as making God his running mate after his party has so denigrated any Republican who dared quote from the Bible or advocate prayer? Thanks in part to a long-established double standard in the news media, he may.

While coverage of such Republicans as Dan Quayle, Allan Keyes, Gary Bauer and others is often dismissive and sneering in tone because of their invocation of religion, Clinton and Gore have chosen churches as sites for their speeches without the separation of church and state issue ever being raised. And Clinton, especially, has talked in a religious vein when it suits his purposes, but gets a free pass on charges of imposing his religious beliefs on others, an accusation often aimed at Republicans who refer to God.

Gore now says a cynicism about religion has emerged over the years where “anybody who believed in God and had a strong religious faith was sort of weak-minded and irrational and silly.” He ought to know. It is his party and its sly spinners who have perfected the art of portraying church-going Republicans as raving, fanatical, dangerous, right-wing lunatics. But now that Gore wants to be president and God is suddenly “in,” well, never mind.

If, as is now expected, Gore faces Texas Gov. George W. Bush in next year’s presidential election, he will face an opponent who does not have to blow the dust off religion to make it a part of his campaign. If Gore sees that his attempt to out-God the Republicans and out-fox the voters is not working too well, there’s no telling what he’ll do. He might even claim he invented the idea of putting a Bible in every hotel room.