Evangelicals upset over GOP field

WASHINGTON – For months, Republican presidential candidates such as Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain have courted evangelical Christians, attending church services and meeting with religious leaders throughout the Midwest and South.

Today, thousands of Christian conservatives will gather in Washington to confront the fact that none of these candidates has won them over.

For former Massachusetts Gov. Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, the conference will be an opportunity to do what months of private meetings has failed to accomplish: become the consensus candidate for the evangelical movement, a key constituency of the Republican Party.

“At the moment, there’s nothing but confusion every place I go,” said Chuck Colson, who runs the Prison Fellowship, a national Christian ministry. “They lament the fact that there’s no one candidate out there around whom evangelicals and conservative Catholics can sort of coalesce around and get excited about.”

He added: “Nobody has rung the bell yet.”

White evangelical Protestants represent about a quarter of the electorate and voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Political operatives say they are even more crucial to victory in a Republican primary.

The Republican hopefuls have arrived at Frank Page’s doorstep one at a time for months. But after meeting with each of them, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Taylors, S.C., remains uneasy and unsure about his choices.

Former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee has shown up twice at his office. Arizona Sen. McCain saw Page early this year. And this summer, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spent two hours at a country club near Page’s church, explaining why he supports abortion rights and hearing Page talk about the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Even as he resists pressure to pick a winner, Page is fielding calls from national leaders like Focus on the Family President James Dobson, who recently threatened to support a third party candidate if Giuliani is the nominee. Page said Dobson called him recently, almost despondent about a nominating process which has so far not produced a clear favorite for Christian conservatives. And it appears the GOP field will lose one of the men who has been aggressively targeting Christians today when Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is expected to drop out of the contest.

“There is a great deal of angst about who will come forward and be electable and also close to the social views and moral views we believe in,” said Page.

Today’s two-day conference – put on by the Family Research Council, a Washington D.C.-based group that organizes conservatives on issues like opposing gay marriage – will highlight the uncertainty among activists and the sense of urgency among the candidates.

Romney, who picked up the endorsement of Bob Jones III, the chancellor of Bob Jones University, this week is viewed with suspicion by some evangelicals because he disavowed his previous embrace of abortion rights. Polls suggest his Mormon faith is also a concern among some evangelical voters.

Thompson, who worked to emerge as a favorite among Christian conservatives this summer, disappointed many by refusing to endorse a federal ban on gay marriage and flubbing a question about Terry Schiavo, the central character in Florida’s right-to-die case.

“This summer, it looked like Thompson was going to gobble up the social conservatives,” said one GOP adviser who has close ties to social conservatives. “They were his to lose, and unfortunately he’s been losing them.”

In South Carolina, where Republicans will vote on Jan. 22, the presidential hopefuls have engaged in aggressive campaigns to win over evangelical leaders.

Thompson and McCain have appeared on Tony Beam’s South Carolina radio show, “Christian Worldview Today.”

Kristin Maguire, a leading social conservative and GOP activist, said she received a personal call from former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent on behalf of Romney, the first Mormon candidate to have a serious shot at the presidency.

“He called into South Carolina on behalf of Romney to get over the whole Mormon issue,” Maguire said this week. “That’s kind of a stumbling block for some Christian conservatives.”

Giuliani’s challenge is far more complicated. He has repeatedly proclaimed his desire to win over religious voters in spite of differences on issues such as abortion, stem cell research and gay rights. But as he attempts to build bridges to Christian leaders nationally, local conservative activists say they see little evidence of those efforts at the ground level.

For many of those traveling to Washington, their goal is simple: prevent Giuliani from becoming their party’s nominee.

“He has done everything to … put his finger in our eyes and tell us this constituency does not matter,” said Steve Scheffler, the head of the Iowa Christian Alliance.

John Stemberger, an Orlando lawyer and conservative Christian who is active in politics in Florida, said that “Every other candidate has been at least pandering at some level. I am not aware of a single effort (by Giuliani’s campaign) to reach out to evangelicals or Catholics for that matter.”

Drew McKissick, a well-known Christian activist and Romney supporter, wrote an e-mail to South Carolina evangelicals urging support for Romney and saying “If it turns out to be Giuliani and Hillary (Clinton), we’ve got two pro-choice candidates, and that would be a disaster.”

Last month in Salt Lake City, a group of conservatives that included Dobson discussed running a third-party candidate if Giuliani is the party’s nominee. Several sources said several prominent Christian conservative leaders were planning to meet again this weekend after Giuliani’s speech to determine if they need to throw their weight behind another candidate.

“A lot of people are going to vent at that point,” said Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist who founded the Moral Majority.