Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 4, 1993 TAG: 9311040219
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK O'KEEFE and WARREN FISKE LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition released a survey Wednesday indicating that evangelical voters gave Allen his landslide and that Democratic television ads linking the Republican candidate with Robertson didn't work.
Others agreed with that analysis, saying conservative Christians cemented their role as a constituency as important to the GOP as blacks are to the Democratic Party.
The Christian right won battles elsewhere. Anti-gay rights initiatives won in Lewiston, Me.; Portsmouth, N.H.; and Cincinnati. Evangelicals gained school board seats in Pennsylvania and Colorado.
But voters in California rejected, by a 2-1 margin, a California plan that would have given parents cash vouchers to help send their children to private schools. Robertson and the Christian Coalition had backed the initiative, hoping it would catch on in other states.
In a news conference in Richmond, Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed Jr. downplayed the California referendum and the defeat of Virginia lieutenant governor candidate Mike Farris, an evangelical portrayed by opponents as a religious extremist.
Instead, he trumpeted the Christian Coalition survey, done by Marketing Research Institute, which showed 38 percent of the Virginia electorate was made up of "self-identified, evangelical, born-again voters." That was close to the result of a Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research survey that found 34 percent of Virginia voters call themselves evangelicals.
Evangelicals voted overwhelmingly Republican, with 76 percent choosing Allen and 72 percent backing Jim Gilmore, who won the attorney general's race, the Christian Coalition poll found. Farris was the least popular Republican among evangelical voters, getting 61 percent of the vote.
According to the Christian Coalition survey, only 15 percent of voters said Democrat Mary Sue Terry did "the right thing" when she "attacked" Allen for being too close to Robertson.
In all, 70 percent of voters said the "negative attacks on religion" had no impact on their vote. Seventeen percent said it made them more inclined to vote Republican.
"I find in this mean-spirited attack on faith in the public square a reason for hope, not despair," Reed said. "The voters made it clear that religious bigotry has no place in Virginia. The result was the largest landslide for the Republican Party in this century."
Reed had particularly harsh words for Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer, the only statewide Democrat who won Tuesday. He said Beyer ran a "vicious campaign of lies and distortions" against Farris, a leading national advocate of home schooling. In television ads, Beyer claimed that Farris sought to ban books such as "The Wizard of Oz" from public schools' shelves in Tennessee.
Reed noted that Farris received more votes than Terry. "He galvanized the Republican base, gave people of faith a stake in this election; and the grass-roots network he built within the Republican Party was an asset, not a liability, to the Republican Party."
Reed said the election results prove that Republicans won on issues that the Christian Coalition has been pushing: no new taxes, back-to-basics education with more local control of schools, and restrictions on abortion.
Bob Myerson, executive director of the Republican Majority Coalition, a moderate group formed to combat the influence of the Christian right, disagreed.
"What George Allen proved is that a mainstream coalition will win you elections," said Myerson. "It's the bridge between the moderates and conservatives that is the winning coalition. That's George Allen. It's the extremists like Mike Farris who won't win."
by CNB