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Posted on 09/04/2001 3:17:09 PM PDT by Keyes For President

ATLANTA, Sept. 3 — Seeking to show a united front after deep divisions over embryonic stem cell research, a coalition of socially conservative groups plans to kick off a campaign this week to pressure President Bush and the Democratic- controlled Senate to fill the next Supreme Court vacancy with an opponent of abortion.

The multifront campaign, which begins with a budget of $2 million, will start on Tuesday with television advertising in Washington. It is expected to spread to other cities throughout the fall. As part of the effort, the coalition plans to encourage thousands of abortion opponents to mail baby rattles to their senators.

The campaign comes amid the first signs of stress in the relationship between Mr. Bush and the social conservative movement, an important component of the president's political base.

Mr. Bush's decision last month to allow federal financing for limited stem cell research was supported, or at least condoned, by many social conservatives who might have been expected to oppose it. Those in favor included the National Right to Life Committee, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family. But it was harshly criticized by other groups, including many Roman Catholic and evangelical organizations that maintain there can be no compromise of principles involving the sanctity of life.

The conservative divide on the stem cell issue — essentially between purists and pragmatists — has worried movement strategists who know from experience that they face complacency when a Republican occupies the White House. With the conservative disunity apparent, and with Democrats controlling the Senate, the strategists believe it is vitally important to demonstrate that social conservatives will be unified and aggressive, particularly when it comes to the Supreme Court and abortion.

The organizer of the Shake the Nation campaign, Janet L. Folger, said she hoped it would give Mr. Bush "a lot more confidence and the members of the Senate a lot more courage." She added: "I can tell you this. There can never be another David Souter."

Ms. Folger was referring to the Supreme Court justice appointed by Mr. Bush's father in 1990. Mr. Souter's views on abortion were largely unknown then, and he has disheartened conservatives by voting to protect abortion rights.

Interviews with more than a dozen leaders of social conservative groups suggest that some opponents of the stem cell measure were so alienated by the president's decision that he may have trouble regaining their confidence. That, they said, is a potential problem for a president who lost the popular vote in the 2000 campaign while barely winning the electoral vote.

Paul M. Weyrich, a longtime conservative activist and writer, said he had received more hate mail in response to a commentary in support of Mr. Bush's decision than he had about all of the nearly daily messages he has written over eight years. Mr. Weyrich estimated that perhaps a fourth of social conservatives opposed the stem cell decision.

"When passions run that deeply," Mr. Weyrich said, "I think he's going to have a hard time getting that quarter of the movement back. Maybe he can afford to lose them, but the last election was pretty close. He can't be squishy in the future."

At the very least, Mr. Weyrich and other conservative leaders said, Mr. Bush may have expended much of the political capital he held with social conservatives. And both supporters and opponents of the stem cell decision said they would now be watching attentively as Mr. Bush turns to judicial appointments, education policy and his proposal to allow religious charities to receive expanded federal financing.

"In the final analysis, people are going to be more circumspect," said Kenneth L. Connor, president of the Family Research Council, a public policy group that takes conservative stands on family issues. "The question is, Can the president be counted on or not?"

Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, said he felt that Mr. Bush's position with his base remained secure.

"There is no group of the president's supporters, other than his family and friends, that is going to support him 100 percent of the time," Mr. Rove said. "But I will say that we were gratified by the level of support from unexpected quarters by people that you might have thought would have been critical of the president's approach."

Social conservatives have made it clear that there is no more important political battleground for them than the Supreme Court, where abortion rights have been affirmed over the last decade by narrow majorities.

While there is no vacancy on the court, three justices — Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor — are over 70. Many court watchers expect at least one retirement within the next few years.

Mr. Bush opposes legalized abortion and has said that he considers the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to have been a "judicial reach." Justices Stevens and O'Connor have voted to uphold the Roe decision, while the chief justice opposes it.

Mr. Bush said repeatedly during last year's campaign that while he would not apply anti-abortion litmus tests to his judicial appointments, he would look for justices who strictly interpret the Constitution and who do not legislate from the bench.

But at the moment, Mr. Bush would also face the political reality of having to nominate someone capable of winning confirmation from a Senate where Democrats hold a 50- to-49 advantage.

Ms. Folger and her allies hope to ensure that Mr. Bush does not compromise his anti-abortion principles in pursuit of an easy confirmation.

"I don't believe because George Bush is in the White House that it ensures victory," she said. "But it gives us a chance."

Some 23 groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and Charles W. Colson's Prison Fellowship, are participating in the campaign organized by Ms. Folger. Though the campaign was conceived before the stem cell decision was made, many participants said the need to show unity and firmness had been reinforced by that debate.

Ms. Folger is national director of the Center for Reclaiming America, which is affiliated with Coral Ridge Ministries, a group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., led by the Rev. D. James Kennedy, a pastor with the socially conservative Presbyterian Church of America. The "Shake the Nation" campaign, Ms. Folger said, was inspired in part by a previous coalition effort called "Truth in Love" that encouraged homosexuals to change their sexual orientation.

The campaign's first television advertisement depicts babies dancing and shaking rattles on the Mall in Washington. When a gavel falls announcing the Supreme Court's approval of abortion rights, the babies disappear from the screen. The advertisement closes with a child's voice saying, "Tell your senator to shake the nation back to life."

Mr. Bush began his tenure with tremendous good will from social conservatives, many of whom felt like pariahs during the Clinton administration. Since then, the relationship has been tended dutifully by Mr. Rove and others in the White House who maintain regular contact with movement leaders. On the day Mr. Bush announced his stem cell decision, Mr. Rove placed numerous calls seeking support from prominent conservatives, one of whom he tracked down in the hospital.

Deal W. Hudson, the editor and publisher of Crisis, a conservative Catholic monthly, said that the level of White House access for Catholic leaders "has been historic."

Mr. Hudson, who is in regular contact with Mr. Rove, said the relationship between Mr. Bush and social conservatives remained sound. "You'd really have to be kind of a fanatical one-issue person or group to fall out of the coalition," he said. "Right now there are some who have spoken and are speaking pretty loudly, but I think that will calm down once it's clear the president is not going to let this decision slide down the slippery slope."

That, of course, is the great fear of many conservatives. Many of those interviewed said they would be watching to see whether Mr. Bush responded to pressure from scientists to loosen his restrictions on financing research on stem cells, which he limited to those already extracted from embryos.

In addition to closely studying his judicial appointments, they said they would look for Mr. Bush to renew the fight to allow parents to use taxpayer-financed tuition aid to send children to private schools. They also will pay close attention to whether he defends his ban on federal money for international family planning agencies that perform or promote abortions, and whether he supports religious charities that want to receive federal financing while maintaining their right to not hire homosexuals.

"On a variety of other issues we'll be even more attentive for what will be expectations of a Bush compromise," said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals. "It's obvious we have to keep the heat on or they won't take us seriously."

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