No Thunder from the Right

By Jane O'Reilly

The ultraconservatives miss the targets on their hit list

Two years ago, the National Conservative Political Action Committee was the scourge of the left, spending at least $1.2 million to help sweep away such liberal luminaries as Senators Frank Church, Birch Bayh, John Culver and George McGovern. Scenting total victory, NCPAC Chairman Terry Dolan immediately announced a 1982 hit list of 20 Senators, including such improbable targets as Pat Moynihan of New York and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Political realities eventually shrank the list to five, but NCPAC still raised $10 million and spent $4.5 million in the 1982 elections. Yet last week, for all its thunder, the New Right could claim partial credit only for the defeat of a single, vulnerable incumbent, Democrat Howard Cannon of Nevada.

At a post-election press conference, New Right leaders blamed a "flawed strategy in the White House" for their failure. "This could have been a year of conservative realignment," lamented Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus. NCPAC'S Dolan took what comfort he could in having made "a number of liberals very unhappy." But, he complained, "the 'stay the course' theme was essentially defensive. It did not point out what was wrong with the other side." During the campaign, Paul Weyrich of the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress had objected, "The liberals have by and large framed the issues."

Even if the economy had not overwhelmed the New Right's agenda for a return to "traditional values," the purge of 1980 would have been nearly impossible to repeat. NCPAC, which had carefully targeted high profile liberals in 1980, touched off a blunderbuss in this election, attacking too many candidates too soon. The New Right organization, while highly funded, did not have enough candidates ready to run. And this time the movement's targets were not complacently ignoring the threat. They fought back.

In several states, NCPAC commercials were kept off the air by victims' complaints that they were misleading or outright false, prompting NCPAC to file a federal suit charging censorship. Democratic Senator John Melcher, a veterinarian, countered a New Right commercial claiming he was "too liberal for Montana" with a TV ad of his own featuring cows. After a shot of "out-of-staters" carrying a briefcase full of money off a plane, one bemused bovine remarks, "Did ya hear about those city slickers bad-mouthing Doc Melcher? One of 'em was stepping in what they've been trying to sell."

Of all the senatorial races this fall, the one in Maryland was supposed to be a special New Right showcase. Attacks on one-term Democratic Incumbent Paul Sarbanes would, NCPAC hoped, push malingering liberals in neighboring Washington onto the path of conservative righteousness. Said Dolan: "When members of Congress drove home, we wanted them to hear an advertisement against Paul Sarbanes saying he was anti-Reagan and should be defeated. We wanted them to see the television ads and have them say, 'It isn't going to take much for them to go after me for the same reason.' " Instead, NCPAC's most expensive campaign ($625,000) turned the slumbering Sarbanes into an active campaigner. What Sarbanes called the "alien presence" of NCPAC became such an issue that Opponent Lawrence Hogan finally threw up his hands on television and declared, "I hereby denounce NCPAC." The Democrats, apparently agreeing, swept Maryland, and Sarbanes won, 63% to 37%.

In a flight of competitive hyperbole, the Democratic National Committee sent out a fund-raising letter during the campaign dubbing North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms "the New Right's Prince of Darkness." Helms emerged last week as a prince without a kingdom. Although Helms' own right-wing political action committee, called the Congressional Club, raised nearly $10 million, all six congressional candidates he supported lost in his home state.

The Conservative Caucus' Phillips insisted that "1982 was the year that demonstrated that conservative themes are still valid." But the Helms debacle suggested that the New Right's stand on social issues is losing its potency. Helms' well-publicized failure in September to get his package of prime New Right issues--school prayer, abortion and limiting the power of the federal courts--through the Senate hurt him badly. Nationwide, in this election at least, the pro-choice side seemed to have the advantage on the abortion issue.

Connaught Marshner, a Weyrich colleague, claimed that the New Right's archfoes, the feminists, did little better in defeating enemies on their own hit list. But the National Organization for Women, which had targeted certain members of the Florida and Illinois legislatures after they had defeated the Equal Rights Amendment, said it had won enough victories to get the measure passed in those states if it were to come up again.

Only 6% of the voters, according to President Reagan's own pollster, Richard Wirthlin, completely believe in the New Right agenda. Nonetheless, the New Right leadership last week saw no need to compromise. The Moral Majority's Ron Godwin vowed renewed efforts for school prayer and against abortion. And Fund Raiser Richard Viguerie, searching for new motivating issues, called for an anti-elitist "new populist revolt." At a somber New Right election-night party, Viguerie declared, "If we win or lose, it's not our doing. God's will is going to be done. He's got His plan." Last week, at least, God's plan seemed to be a moderate one. --By Jane O'Reilly. Reported by B.J. Phillips/Atlanta and John F. Stacks/Washington

With reporting by B.J. Phillips, John F. Stacks

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