Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) (AP)

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 14, 1998; Page A01

Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.) has taken a commanding lead in the battle to win the support of Christian right leaders, eclipsing two better-known rivals in what amounts to the first Republican presidential primary for 2000.

Adroitly using his Senate seat as a pulpit to hammer on moral and budget issues, Ashcroft has emerged from relative obscurity to lay claim to a conservative constituency sought by magazine heir Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes and former vice president Dan Quayle.

Loudest and clearest have been his attacks on President Clinton. Just days after the Monica S. Lewinsky controversy broke, the former Missouri governor set himself apart from the competition and the Republican leadership by raising the question of impeachment. More recently he has made the single harshest charge against the president, denouncing him as a sexual "predator."

The most dramatic signal of Ashcroft's strength was the disclosure yesterday that religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, chairman of the Christian Coalition and founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and his wife, Adelia, had donated $10,000 to Ashcroft's political action committee, the Spirit of America PAC. In another recent coup, Gretchen Purser has signed on to run direct mail for the PAC. Purser won fame on the right as director of development for the Christian Coalition, where she built the mailing list from roughly 200,000 names to 4 million.

More important, interviews with Christian and social conservative leaders, many of whom are trying to agree on a single candidate to endorse before the start of the primaries, suggested that the Missouri senator has far stronger support than his competitors.

Ashcroft has wooed this core Republican constituency by taking the lead on a range of issues, from tax cuts for married couples to killing the National Endowment for the Arts, that are top priorities for social conservatives, many of whom are frustrated and angry with the Republican House and Senate leadership. Ashcroft has shown no hesitancy calling for support of the traditional two-parent family, for protection of religious expression at home and abroad and standing against abortion in a forthright manner that conservatives have been seeking in their elected officials.

"He is developing a convincing following in the leadership of the pro-family movement, and conservative leaders are paying a lot of attention to him," said Mike Farris, who runs the Madison Project, a conservative political action committee, and the nonpartisan Home School Legal Defense Association. Farris said he is currently "leaning heavily in his [Ashcroft's] favor."

"I like Senator Ashcroft, I like Ashcroft very much," said Phyllis Schlafly, head of the Eagle Forum and a stalwart of the antiabortion movement. In a column for the conservative publication Human Events, Terence P. Jeffrey, who managed Patrick J. Buchanan's 1996 presidential campaign, wrote, "The question isn't any longer whether John Ashcroft has the gumption to be President of the United States, it is whether he is the only Republican officeholder who does."

Social conservatives have been holding private discussions in a determined effort to avoid getting "Doled" in 2,000. They have turned the last name of 1996 GOP nominee Robert J. Dole into a verb to describe their decision to back Dole only to see him assiduously avoid their controversial issues in the general election.

Ashcroft's early success reflects an ability to overcome his relatively junior position as a freshman senator. By being quick and assertive, he has taken center stage in a series of high visibility disputes – and even prevailed on several.

Most recently, Ashcroft led a small band of conservatives who threatened to vote against the budget approved by the Senate Budget Committee unless they received a commitment that the tax cut would be enlarged during House-Senate negotiations, and that the cut would be used to reduce the "marriage penalty" in the income tax code. They won.

Ashcroft played a crucial role last month in forcing the withdrawal of a Clinton judicial appointee, Frederica Massiah-Jackson, who appeared certain of confirmation until officials in the Philadelphia area accused her of excessively favoring defendants and of drawing public attention to undercover police.

Neither Robertson's $10,000 check nor the favorable comments of social conservatives amount to formal endorsements, but they are clear signals that Ashcroft would have to be considered the favorite if leaders of the Christian right and allied organizations – who have their own divisions – can agree on a single candidate. The leaders, many of whom run tax-exempt groups, would endorse as individuals, not as representatives of their organizations.

Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and perhaps the first to coin the phrase "to be Doled," said, "Social issue conservatives in the Republican Party are not going to be content with being 'given consideration' this time." Land expects to remain neutral in the primaries, but noted that many of his associates in the Baptist convention plan to endorse.

Next to Ashcroft, the prospective candidate who had made the most assiduous effort to win backing among social conservatives is Forbes, who has spoken to the Christian Coalition, endorsed Christian-backed candidates in GOP primaries and reshaped his rhetoric to meet some of the toughest demands of the antiabortion movement.

At a Heritage Foundation speech last year, Forbes declared, "Let me be clear: Life begins at conception and ends at natural death. An individual's right to life is not a state-endowed right. It is a Creator-endowed right."

These efforts have won Forbes applause and some backing, but not at the level of Ashcroft's.

One of those leaning toward Forbes, the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, contended that the magazine publisher combines a "strong trust of the economy" with a commitment to conservative social values. "I think that is going to be the wedding of the millennium. Steve Forbes is going to be able to take the best of both aspects and put them together."

None of the social conservative leaders who were interviewed indicated that they were leaning toward Quayle, who, as George Bush's vice president from 1989 to 1993, had won the hearts and minds of many on the right.

In addition, almost everyone interviewed voiced doubts about the credibility of a presidential bid by Gary Bauer, head of the Family Research Council, although several credited Bauer with having the absolute loyalty of a hard-core base that could turn him into a factor, if not a competitor, in the primaries.

Bauer, who has been testing the presidential waters and receiving a favorable response from activists in various states, said he believes it is a bad idea for social conservative leaders to try to endorse one candidate. "It is a sign of hubris that any of us could be sitting in Washington and think we could decide this thing. It's a marketplace competition."

A source close to the Forbes organization dismissed the leanings of social conservatives toward Ashcroft: "He goes out to Iowa, but he's not even showing up in the polls." A source close to the Quayle organization said he has "heard some of those rumblings [about Ashcroft], but my impression is he is kind of a fad because he is new." Both spoke on background because they did not want to offend leaders of the Christian right.

Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation and an organizer of the drive for an early consensus endorsement, said, "Ashcroft is doing quite well, Forbes surprisingly well." Weyrich stressed that he does "not want to be listed as pushing for someone," but, he added, "I'm very favorably disposed to Ashcroft."

Ashcroft's roots in the social-conservative movement are far deeper than those of Forbes, who in 1996 was widely viewed as a critic and adversary of such groups as the Christian Coalition. Ashcroft, whose father and grandfather were both ministers, won two terms as Missouri governor by advocating a broad conservative doctrine. In his eight years there he proved inventive at coming up with conservative solutions to policy problems such as welfare and education.

"With Forbes, people are a lot more cautious," Ferris said, "They like some of the things he is saying, but I, at least, remember his carpet-bombing remarks [in 1996] when he blasted Christian conservatives. People that convert to new political positions in the midst of campaigning deserve close scrutiny. At least he is saying good things."

Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, whose consulting firm is now doing some work for Ashcroft and other candidates, said: "I think it's early, but if you freeze frame right now, I would say Ashcroft is emerging as the proprietary candidate of the religious-conservative movement. But Forbes is not going to take that for granted, he is not going to concede that constituency to anyone."