EARLEY BREAKS THE MOLD

How did he do it, becoming “the first bona fide member of the Christian conservative movement to achieve major state office,” as the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot put it? Earley, 43, is a soft-spoken, non-threatening, likable ex-missionary, but personality alone can’t explain a landslide. His record and his campaign do. Though clearly a religious conservative, Earley was active in the state senate mostly on issues like welfare reform and juvenile justice, sponsoring bills on those subjects that became law.

The result: He was seen as a legitimate political player, far from one- dimensional. He also developed ties to blacks and organized labor, as well as to the business community and GOP moderates like senator John Warner and congressman Tom Davis. In the campaign, he cast himself as a mainstream conservative, not a Christian Right candidate. This was credible because he hadn’t jumped into the race fresh from a church pew. And the issues he touted were related to the attorney general’s job — public safety, parole, school- based anti-crime programs.

Earley made an effort to get along with the press and important Virginia commentators like Larry Sabato, and it paid dividends. The Washington Post and Washington Times, one liberal, the other conservative, endorsed Earley on the same day. Kincaid, Earley’s chief consultant, is obsessive about the need for conservatives “to treat the media as your friend. ” If politicians handle reporters with respect, she insists, “they’ll respect you.” Actually, Earley had courted reporters for years. Thus, he didn’t encounter the hostility from the press that earlier Christian conservative candidates, Mike Farris in 1993 and Oliver North in 1994, had faced. In fact, the Post editorial page rushed to Earley’s defense when Democrats first attacked him in June as “the hand-picked candidate of the narrow right wing of the Republican party.” Au contraire, the Post wrote. Later, in its endorsement, the paper said his legislative record and “the support he enjoys among minorities, labor, teacher organizations and other groups” show he’s no extremist.

Earley’s biography turned out to be a big asset. He was a senior at Indian River High in Chesapeake when a nearby all-black school closed and its students came to Indian River. “I took an active role in what wasn’t then but now is known as racial reconciliation,” Earley says. (The school, by the way, was later attended by Alonzo Mourning, who became a basketball star with the Miami Heat.) After college, he spent two years in the Philippines as a Christian missionary for a group called Navigators. During the campaign, he got strong backing from Filipino immigrants in Virginia. As a prominent lawyer in Norfolk, Earley served as honorary chairman of the Virginia Chapter of the United Negro College Fund. He also joined the NAACP in 1982 and was endorsed for attorney general by Virginia NAACP president Paul Gillis. Since his law firm represented labor unions, Earley got to know labor leaders, and in his first state senate race he was supported by the state AFL-CIO. This year, the firefighters union endorsed him. But his labor ties had a downside: opposition by the National Right-to-Work Committee. This was partly due to Earley’s co-sponsorship of a bill that would have eroded the state’s right-to- work law. Earley later withdrew his name from the bill. He now says “no one should be compelled to join a union or pay union dues.”

For all his non-Christian ties, Earley wouldn’t have won without a political base in theologically conservative churches in Virginia. Ralph Reed, now a political consultant in Atlanta, says the conventional wisdom is wrong about candidates who publicly express their faith in God and associate with religious-conservative leaders. Their religious connections are “an asset at the polling place, not an albatross.” Certainly they were for Earley in the GOP primary against three opponents, two of whom aired TV ads. Earley relied on public appearances and direct mail to mobilize Christians (and others). He won with 36 percent.

Already, Earley is the model for conservative Christian candidates around the country. Reed says he did two things right. First, he ran as a Reagan- style conservative. “He never tried to shrink from his views and values, but he didn’t run a campaign of which abortion was the centerpiece,” says Reed. Second, “he demonstrates that if you want to run statewide as a religious conservative candidate, you need to rack up an impressive record in another job.” That’s a job outside the ministry, of course. This makes it very difficult for foes and the press to typecast the candidate as, in Reed’s terminology, “uni-dimensional.”

Guy Rodgers, the consultant, says Earley’s style helped him avoid being pigeonholed. “I believe too many people in the pro-family movement, by their temperament, words, and actions, reinforce the liberal, flawed stereotype of us as snarling, uncompassionate dogmatists,” he says. “It is that stereotype that so often prevents us from communicating our message effectively.” Earley broke the mold, Rodgers says, by coming across as a man of “principled compassion, not snarling condemnation.” Couple that with “smart campaign tactics, and we will win more than our fair share of elections.” And not just in Virginia.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.