Better Seen Than Heard On Abortion Keynote Speaker Won’t Mention Key Issue

Rep. Susan Molinari, who was picked to give the Republican convention’s keynote address largely because she is a woman who symbolizes moderation and abortion rights, said Tuesday she doesn’t plan to discuss abortion in the speech.

“That’s my intention right now, not to bring it up,” the New York Republican told a news conference the day after presumptive Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole announced her selection.

“I don’t think it’s necessary at this point,” she said, cradling her sleeping 2-month-old daughter, Susan Ruby, on her shoulder, as her husband, Rep. Bill Paxon, R-N.Y., looked on. “I think we’ve had that debate. I think we’ve come to a solution.”

But reaction to her surprise selection and to her decision not to discuss abortion in the address showed that the debate over the issue in the Republican Party is a long way from being over.

Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, used Molinari’s selection as a way to warn Dole against choosing a running mate who favors abortion rights.

“While we understand Sen. Dole’s desire to close the gender gap (which shows women prefer President Clinton by a higher margin than men), we stress that he must remain sensitive and committed to the needs of social conservatives, who could … provide him with the margin of victory.”

But others among the religious right were less oblique.

“It’s almost a deliberate, in-your-face kind of thing,” said Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative group. Weyrich led an unsuccessful attempt last year to oust Sheila Burke, former Senate Majority Leader Dole’s chief of staff, who supports abortion rights.

“This is not a selection that will galvanize the needed grass-roots support for a GOP win,” warned Kristi Hamrick of the Family Research Council.

Molinari had her own warning, though, cautioning the Christian Coalition not to jump to conclusions about the implications of her selection on the issue of Dole’s running mate and abortion. She noted that she had worked with the coalition on other issues and that Dole had worked hard to accommodate all wings of the party on the abortion issue with tolerance language inserted in the party platform.

Ann Stone, who with Molinari is a founder of Republicans for Choice, an organization that favors abortion rights, said she planned to try to talk Molinari out of clamming up at the convention.

“It would be nice if she would say ‘I’m a pro-choice Republican, but I’m not here to talk about what divides us, I’m here to talk about what unites us,’ and that’s what I’m going to suggest,” Stone said.

Dole, who announced the selection of Molinari on the CNN program “Larry King Live” Monday night, referred to his choice of the 38-year-old new mother as “a big statement about women” and described her as “pro-choice” on abortion.

Although she has been consistently in favor of abortion rights, Molinari did vote to ban a rare late-term abortion procedure, thus angering ardent abortion rights supporters.

Molinari said she would “like to think this is a lot larger than symbolism and certainly based on (Dole’s) past performance” on women’s issues such as sponsoring legislation on sexual assault prevention and breast cancer research.

Although perceived as moderate, Molinari, on issues other than abortion and gun control, she is generally more conservative: The American Conservative Union gave her a 71 percent favorable rating in 1994, the latest year for which it compiled statistics.

“She has a moderate image, but she is very conservative,” said Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “If she’s not going to talk about abortion, the one issue where she has signs of moderation, it doesn’t say much about Republican efforts at moderation.”

In an interview late last week, before her selection as the keynoter was sprung, she recalled being interviewed in 1992 during the Republican National Convention. She remembered saying that candidate Pat Buchanan’s scathing attack speech was “scary. That’s scary about the future of our party,” she remembered thinking.

She said in the interview that she hoped the Republicans had learned from the mistakes they made four years ago and that it would not happen again.

Perhaps they have.

Buchanan, who is still formally a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, praised her selection Tuesday. “While we disagree, deeply, over the issues of life and social policy,” he said, “Susan is an articulate, passionate voice inside our great and diverse party.”