For years, Marlene Elwell has come to iowa to get out the vote in the name of the family and the lives of “the unborn.” A mother of five from a Detroit suburb, she’s been a top organizer for the National Right to Life Committee and the Christian Coalition. She’s back this winter for another ground war, crisscrossing snowy terrain in subzero temperatures for one reason. It’s not that she and her allies think Dole is perfect; they don’t. He’s a dealmaker who would need constant supervision in the White House. But they doubt that their natural favorite – Pat Buchanan – can win. “If I wasn’t so worried about Steve Forbes, I probably wouldn’t be here,” Elwell, 57, said in Des Moines. “Forbes isn’t one of us. Supporting Bob Dole is the way to stop him.”
So in advance of Iowa’s caucuses next Monday, Elwell was hard at work. She persuaded the leader of the Iowa Christian Coalition to endorse Dole. She wrote a new anti-Forbes mailing. She arranged the first stop on Dole’s busy itinerary in Iowa last weekend. It was a trip to Dubuque, the Roman-Catholic-dominated river city. Dole’s traveling companion was Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, the white-haired elder statesman of the antiabortion movement. And Elwell was making plans for the caucus night, focusing on her own special method for getting out the vote: pre-caucus potluck suppers. “Give everybody hot dogs and chili,” she said. “Make it like a tailgate party.”
For Bob Dole, it’s come down to this: his chance for the White House may depend on hot dogs, chili and the religious right in Iowa. He had planned on running as the last grown-up, a tested leader in a field of baby boomers. Now, to stop the surprising insurgence of a millionaire publisher, he finds himself depending on the kind of religious true believers he’s never been comfortable with–and who’ve never been comfortable with him. In the GOP nominating season that begins in Louisiana this week, every candidate needs supporters with passion. Dole doesn’t have many. He’s fallen behind in New Hampshire, where antitax Republicans and influential independents aren’t with him; the “Live Free or Die” crowd is intrigued by Forbes’s flat tax. In the South, Phil Gramm has worked the gun lobby, bragging that his own “momma” packs a .38 pistol.
So with victory no longer inevitable anywhere, Dole desperately needs a comfortable win in Iowa, a farm state he won in 1988. Polls put him ahead, but nowhere near the 37 percent he won in ‘88. Forbes is a clear second. As Dole traversed the state last weekend-making 10 stops in two days–aides reminded him not to utter what one of them called the “F word.” After a crisis meeting with them in New Hampshire, Dole agreed to take the high road. In Iowa now, he’s “one of you,” a farm boy. His ads and allies went negative.
Forbes’s flat tax would ruin family farm finances, they told rural voters. His proposal to privatize social security for younger workers was untested and too “risky,” they told senior citizens. Forbes is no friend to the corn-based ethanol industry, they told agribusiness.
But to win Iowa this time, Dole chiefly needs help from a cultural right that dominates the Iowa GOP from the governor’s mansion to the school boards. Dole and his competitors know that Democrats call these voters “extremists.” And Dole understands that wooing the far right too conspicuously can backfire in general elections. Pro-choice forces in Oregon, for example, last week helped Democratic Rep. Ron Wyden win a Senate seat that had been in GOP hands for 34 years. After allowing Newt Gingrich’s largely secular “Contract With America” to occupy center stage, the Christian Right wants action in Congress on everything from school prayer to abortion. “It’s time for them to deal with our issues,” says Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council. On the campaign trail, Dole and most of his second-tier rivals–especially Gramm and Buchanan–are competing to pledge their allegiance. Caucuses are decided by committed voters, and religious activists are very committed. Dole has no choice,
Still, it’s not an easy sell. Dole caused problems for himself recently by seeming to equivocate on his longtime support for an anti-abortion Human Life Amendment. “He didn’t change his position, but it sounded like it to a lot of people,” Elwell frets. In fact, Dole does support a less strict version of the amendment than some of his rivals. His appeal is that he can win, and that he at least understands the Christian agenda. Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition is shipping more than 100,000 one-page “voter guides” to Iowa. The scorecard gives Buchanan and Gramm perfect marks, and decent ones to Dole. It lists Forbes, who supports a woman’s right to have an abortion in the first two trimesters of pregnancy, as “opposed,” “unclear” or having “no response” on key items.
Fighting for New Right votes is not the game Dole wanted to be playing at this point. “All Dole is doing is trading votes back and forth with Gramm and Buchanan,” chortled Forbes’s polltaker, John McLaughlin. “That’s just fine with us.” Gramm is strong among gun enthusiasts, and the Texan is blasting Dole for backing the Brady bill. Buchanan’s supporters are the most fervent–and they, too, could cut into Dole’s right-wing support. One night last week, when the temperature in Des Moines was 20 below zero, Buchanan’s headquarters was packed with volunteers who firmly believed they were saving the lives of “the unborn” every time they picked up the phone.
Iowa is supposed to be a place where phones, friends and years of visiting voters in their living rooms still matter. In 2,142 precincts in 99 counties, perhaps 150,000 Republicans will take part in what amount to town meetings. Winning traditionally takes enormous organization, the culmination of long, prosaic effort. “It’s almost a religion here,” marvels Forbes organizer Chip Carter, who is from Oklahoma. Forbes is challenging the faith. Sure, he has a headquarters, and it looks like all the others. The walls are covered with maps, the tables are piled high with voter lists. But Forbes is really running by blanketing the state with ads and mailings, hoping to harvest a new crop of voters who have never been to a caucus, let alone run a phone tree.
Dole knows prosaic. But besides delivering his own vote, Dole’s main plan is to keep his enemies divided. In the Alaska straw poll, Dole quit competing with Buchanan for votes–and helped him eke out a narrow win over Forbes. In this week’s Louisiana caucuses, Dole played a different game. Only Gramm and Buchanan competed in that event, campaigning in the Catholic Cajun parishes. Concerned about Gramm’s strong organizational presence in Iowa–and his prospects in the South–the Dole forces were giving advice to Buchanan in Louisiana. His campaign manager, his sister “Bay” Buchanan, frequently talks with Dole campaign manager Scott Reed. “We chat from time to time,” Reed laughs.
Dole, meanwhile, stormed iowa from the Mississippi to the Missouri and back, carrying his message that only he could stop Forbes–and beat Clinton. It was a startling reversal of fortune: Dole, cruising along as the clear front runner until a few weeks ago, positioning himself as the leader of a Stop Forbes movement that is growing more serious by the day, with the entire field and much of the media attacking the publishing heir. “I’ve learned to be realistic,” said Elwell, as she prepared to travel the state one more time. “In politics, there’s no such thing as perfection.” At this point, Bob Dole will settle for survival.
PHOTO (COLOR): Pressing on: His fate now in doubt, Dole is fighting precinct by precinct
PHOTO (COLOR): Testing the faith: Forbes, says a GOP religious activist, isn’t one of us
DOLE’S PRIMARY BATTLEFIELDS
After skipping Louisiana this week, Dole must win in Iowa, where fans refer to him as Uncle Bob. And the terrain gets even rougher after that.
Feb. 27: Arizona Barry Goldwater’s home state is welcoming Forbes, who leads substantially in the early polls. If Dole is faltering, he can’t expect revival in the desert.
Feb. 12: Iowa If Dole can’t do it here, he can’t do it anywhere. A farm-belt native, he triumphed in Iowa in ‘88. He probably won’t do as well this year, but needs to win comfortably.
March 5, 7: Yankee primaries With 361 delegates in New England, New York and five other states, this was to be Dole’s coronation, but it could be his undoing if native Forbes is in the fight.
Feb. 20: New Hampshire Lost it all here to Bush last time, now facing antitax Forbes in antitax state. To survive, he’s using the Bush script: strong support from a popular GOP governor.
March 2: South Carolina Dole has lined up the powers that be, but that won’t help him if he has no mo’. If Gramm, Buchanan or Alexander is alive, any one could give Dole problems.
