Republicans Fail to Keep Lid on Abortion Issue

WASHINGTON —  A three-year effort by Republican leaders to mute the divisive debate over abortion has suffered a resounding and discordant setback in the last several days--a development that further complicates the party’s already difficult political position.

From the moment they launched their drive to regain the White House after the 1992 election, Republican leaders recognized that the argument over abortion could wreck their hopes of reassembling a majority electoral coalition. So party leaders did their best to avoid discussion of the issue.

Party leaders conspicuously avoided mentioning abortion in their 1994 “contract with America.” And the issue was one that Sen. Bob Dole carefully tried to avoid in his successful campaign to clinch the party’s presidential nomination this year.

But in the last few days, as party activists have begun turning their attention to August’s Republican convention in San Diego, that effort at issue-avoidance has seemed to fall apart.

Partisans from across the spectrum--from California Gov. Pete Wilson, an abortion-rights advocate, to Patrick J. Buchanan and Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, abortion foes--have been sounding off. They have succeeded both in reviving the issue and in distracting attention from Dole’s arduous drive to get his challenge to President Clinton on track.

The round of statements has brought the party no closer to resolving the issue. But it has made it clear that neither side is likely to give Dole any peace until he finds a way to resolve the debate. And that won’t be easy.

For not only is the abortion issue cloaked in morality and principle, it also is heavily freighted with potential political advantage and grave political risk. Some analysts believe that abortion rights do not really belong in the political arena because abortion is an issue that is so highly personal. But precisely because it deals directly with people’s well-being and values, abortion takes on immense importance in a political world where most issues seem abstract and remote.

*

The GOP platform now calls for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion--a position that most Americans do not support, according to numerous polls in recent years. Changing the platform, Dole’s leading advisors argue, could enhance his image as a broader and more tolerant figure than he now appears to be.

“I think it’s very important for the party to send a message that we are inclusive, that we are welcoming, that there is room for a range of opinion on abortion and other issues,” Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld said Sunday on a Fox TV interview show. “And I think the easiest and best way to do that is by taking the [abortion] plank right out of the platform.”

But other Republican strategists fear that any benefits for Dole would be outweighed by the risk of alienating the party’s core supporters--particularly if the platform cannot be changed without a battle at the convention.

The threat of such a battle has been compounded by the continued candidacy of Buchanan, who has been unrelenting in his opposition to any change in the platform.

“If Bob Dole is not willing to fight this battle [to preserve the platform], step aside, because I can, and I will fight this battle in San Diego,” Buchanan vowed at a rally of his supporters last week in a Washington suburb.

Part of Dole’s problem is that while it is in his interest to quiet the battle, many have reasons to escalate it. For Buchanan, for example, the abortion issue offers a strong justification for continuing his candidacy for the nomination.

*

On the other side of the fence, Wilson and fellow governors George Pataki of New York and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, who have vowed to try to change the platform, have each established political identities based in part on support for abortion rights.

Reed has a more complicated calculation to make. The abortion issue provides a means for him to further define and strengthen the Christian Coalition leadership role in the Christian Right. But if he could engineer a compromise, Reed would gain still more influence within the party at large.

Thus Reed not only refused to go along with Buchanan, he has proposed a substitute plank.

Conceding that “the votes cannot currently be found in Congress” for a constitutional ban, Reed argues abortion-rights foes should keep their long-term goal of winning such an amendment but should concentrate on judicial appointments and state laws, and “pour our greatest efforts into education, persuasion and prayer.”

In theory Dole could end the debate simply by announcing his position, because nearly all the convention delegates are pledged to his candidacy. But in actuality, such a fiat might be difficult to enforce, particularly if he decided in favor of a platform change, because many delegates hold strong views on ideological issues.

In 1976, President Ford and Ronald Reagan staged a major fight over a platform reference to the Panama Canal. Richard Williamson, who was Reagan’s platform committee coordinator, recalls a Florida delegate, Fred Streeter, who insisted on backing Reagan’s language on the issue even though he was pledged to support Ford for the nomination.

*

Even when Ford phoned him, Streeter said: “I’m sorry Mr. President, I’m not going to give away our canal.”

This time around, says Williamson, “there are going to be more Fred Streeters at the convention than most people realize.”