Conservative Psychologist Keeps Pressure On Gop James Dobson Says Evangelical Voters Tune In To Moral Issues

Pat Buchanan, Phil Gramm, Lamar Alexander and Alan Keyes have all made political pilgrimages to James Dobson’s offices looking out onto Pike’s Peak.

In Washington, the president of Focus on the Family regularly meets with House Speaker Newt Gingrich and has met with Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.

The prize each seeks is the support of the psychologist who each week reaches 5 million Americans who listen to his daily half-hour broadcast on 1,500 U.S. radio stations.

But lately, that prize has seemed increasingly out of reach. The influential Christian conservative has become an outspoken critic of a Republican leadership that he contends has become “wishy-washy” on moral issues such as abortion.

The warning he has sent out to 2 million Focus on the Family constituents and more than 100,000 pastors is that Republicans are taking a walk on moral issues such as abortion and gays in the military.

If they continue to pursue a “big-tent” strategy that avoids taking a stand on moral issues in the interest of party unity, Dobson says, it will be conservative Christians who walk out in large enough numbers to ensure a Democratic victory.

“We’ll see how much unity there is when they have been thrown out of office,” Dobson declares.

In a recent interview and in remarks before a group of secular religion writers, Dobson gave no sign of letting up pressure on the Republican hierarchy to turn its attention to moral issues after months of emphasizing economic issues.

Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour said in a letter to Dobson that the phrase “big tent” means to him that the GOP is an open party. One of the great Republican successes of the past two years, he said, was the ability of the party’s candidates to win support from voters on both sides of the abortion issue.

But that attitude, Dobson said, in some ways makes him admire the Democrats more because he says at least they let you know where they stand on the abortion issue.

In trying to play it “safe” by avoiding the issue, Dobson says, what Republicans are really demonstrating “is a lack of courage.”

It is also, he contends, “a recipe for political disaster.”

The hundreds of thousands of people who write Focus on the Family each month, and large numbers of the evangelical voters who he said provided 43 percent of the Republican voters in their landslide victories last fall, are not primarily concerned with economic issues, according to Dobson.

What they are concerned about is their own families and issues such as abortion, homosexuality and pornography, concerns that this society is in a moral freefall, Dobson said.

“Those folks would work like crazy for a candidate who gives voice to those concerns,” Dobson said.

Dobson said he will never endorse a candidate, but of the candidates out there now, Buchanan, the conservative commentator, and Keyes, a former ambassador to the United Nations, come the closest to representing the concerns of conservative Christians.

However, Dobson said, the GOP party leadership does not appear to be moving in the same direction. He cites as an example a recent Gingrich fund-raising letter that did not mention abortion or family issues.

And that is a formula for turning off evangelical Christians to the GOP’s peril, Dobson says.

“If they lose 10 percent of that group, they can’t win,” Dobson says. “Furthermore, they invite a third-party candidate.”

Dobson said he would never advocate or lead a third-party movement.

But if Dole became the Republican candidate and picked a running mate who favored legalized abortion, such as New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman or California Gov. Pete Wilson, watch out for a third party, Dobson said.

The threat of a Democratic victory would not be enough to deter significant numbers of Christian conservatives for voting for a third party if they feel abandoned by the GOP, Dobson said.

“It’s my belief they will back a third party to make a statement,” he said.