San Diego Union Tribune
August 18, 1984

1984 -  New Right's on target as Republicans gather in Dallas
Moderates lose custody of party's mainstream

Betsy Bates; Tribune Staff Writer

As a prelude to the Republican National Convention, two factions within the GOP are engaged in a fight for the right to claim they represent the mainstream of America .

But when the cards are dealt to the New Right and self-dubbed moderates of the GOP, the New Right has control of the deck in 1984. And it has succeeded in drawing up the most conservative party platform of the last 20 years.

In four years, the deck will be reshuffled, and moderates of the party like Sens. Howard Baker of Tennessee and Bob Dole of Kansas, and even Vice President George Bush, may try to wrest "the heart and the soul of the party" from its most conservative branch, made up of people like Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, Rep. Duncan Hunter of Coronado, and Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Paul Laxalt of Nevada.

At this point, the most liberal of the so-called moderates -- people like Sen. Lowell Weicker of Connecticut -- have been invited none too politely to leave the party altogether.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, in a news conference yesterday, compared Weicker to the Democrats, who "left the grassroots of this country and headed out into left field."

"Sen. Weicker would have been a lot more at home at the zoo in San Francisco " than at the Republican National Convention this year, Falwell said.

Ironically, Falwell may be right. Weicker and the Republican Mainstream Committee failed to get one concession from the platform committee on issues like the Equal Rights Amendment, the right to abortions under certain circumstances and the nuclear freeze issue.

Meanwhile, Falwell described the New Right as a "sleeping giant" which has awakened in the last four years, and will impact the November election heavily by registering voters and supporting candidates who support the views of the far right.

Ronald Reagan, Falwell said, is "the finest president who's been in the White House in my lifetime ... (who has) used the White House repeatedly as a bully pulpit for the moral and social issues (of the New Right)."

If the makeup of the convention, and the reception Falwell has received here, are representative of the nation, the Republican Party has taken the road leading right at a very fast clip.

Much of the literature to be found here deals in graphic terms with abortion, promotes the traditional, church-going Christian family and warns of the communist threat in countries around the world.

Dallas is a lonely place for the moderate Republican, and even high profile moderate groups admit they have made little impact on the platform of the party here, and aren't likely to do so when the full convention officially arrives Monday.

Those moderate groups, "People for the American Way " and the Republican Mainstream Committee, are sharing defeat this week.

Yesterday, Falwell called People for the American Way -- a non-profit educational group which advocates strong adherence to the First Amendment -- "a dying cause."

In response, former Alabama Congressman John Buchanan said, "We are dead in the same sense the Equal Rights Amendment is dead. We have lost a battle ... the likelihood is that we can prevail in the long run.'

Buchanan said that although he believes most people are more moderate than the Republicans of the New Right, they are attracted to the charisma of the president.

"The American people respond to a charismatic leader. They are indeed hungry for leadership, and Ronald Reagan appeals to the American people. So do many evangelical preachers," Buchanan said.

"I still believe most Americans are in the middle (on the social issues).

"In many ways, we are trying to make our voices heard at this convention. But we admittedly are in an adverse position. No one who is at all realistic could deny that."

Buchanan claims that his group fairly represents "mainstream" Americans, and mainstream Republicans, in spite of their low profile at this convention. At the same time, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and anti-ERA activist Phyllis Schlafly are maintaining extremely high profiles at the Republican Convention (Schlafly is a member of the Platform Committee) and they, too, claim to be the spokespeople for "mainstream America."

Both Falwell and Schlafly heaped praise on the Republican Platform, which espouses a philosophy more conservative than that of President Reagan. The platform concentrates on strong defense and military systems and opposes any rise in taxes in spite of Reagan's preference for an escape valve in case he has no choice but to raise taxes to counter the growing deficit.

But the platform also is heavily spiced with conservatism on the social issues:

o Local communities should have the choice of whether to permit vocal school prayer.

o There should be an end to sex discrimination, but the platform opposes the concept of equal pay for jobs of comparable worth.

o There should be a constitutional amendment banning abortion.

o Public funds should not be used for abortion for poor women, even in cases of rape and incest.

o Judges should be appointed who "respect family values and the sanctity of innocent human life."

o The GOP supports capital punishment.

o Pornography encourages violence and perversion against women and children and should be condemned.

o The government should strictly enforce the Pupil Rights Amendment, which prohibits questionnaires in schools on values and moral reasoning of children, role playing, secular humanism and values clarification.

o Tax credits should be permitted for parents sending their children to private schools.

The platform makes no statement about the Equal Rights Amendment.

One speaker to the Family Forum sponsored by Falwell's Moral Majority and the Free Congress Foundation said society is endangered by a corruption of traditional values, but there is room for optimism, especially this year.

"The traditional values movement is growing among those who probably don't even know what it's called," said Connaught Marshner, chairman of the National Pro-Family Coalition.

Marshner spoke against abortion, divorce, pre-marital sex, hedonism and what she called the "sodomized privileges movement," or homosexuality.

"We're the ones who called stop, enough. We're happy to admit that. I wouldn't say our kind of folks politicize the issues," she said.

"Our kind of folks are trying to reverse the tide ... that if left unchecked would destroy society. Traditional values or totalitarianism, that's what it boils down to."