THE REPUBLICAN PARTY’S HIERARCHY is apoplectic, but Tim Lambert has actually done the GOP a favor by proposing to block party funding for candidates who oppose a ban on partial-birth abortions. True, the resolution by the Republican committeeman from Texas will prompt a noisy debate — and then probably lose — when the 165 members of the GOP national committee take it up Friday in Palm Springs, Calif. But to thwart Lambert, party leaders have already been forced to revitalize their commitment to outlaw partial- birth abortions, a cause supported by roughly three out of four Americans. Also, the squabble is bound to attract lavish, new attention to the gruesome partial-birth procedure itself. One possible result: Republican candidates may get over their squeamishness about making partial birth a major campaign theme. If used intelligently in TV ads, it has the potential to improve dramatically the prospects for both challengers and embattled incumbents like Sen. Al D’Amato in New York. The issue, after all, divides Democratic voters.
The biggest beneficiary of the fight, however, may be Jim Nicholson, the Republican national chairman. Elected a year ago, he has yet to emerge as a forceful national figure, suffering in comparison with his selfassured predecessor, Haley Barbour. In fact, while quietly opposed to barring Republican National Committee funds for candidates who approve of partial- birth abortions, Nicholson had no plans to fight the Lambert resolution openly — until it looked as if it might win. Then on January 6, he issued a strong statement opposing Lambert. More important, he began organizing a full- blown effort to defeat the proposal. Wisely, he not only recruited former GOP chairmen such as Barbour and Frank Fahrenkopf, but he also got prominent pro- lifers like former GOP representative Vin Weber and Michigan state chairwoman Betsy DeVos to back him. Now, Nicholson may wind up strengthened as party leader and better known nationally.
Of course, he has to win — and do so without causing a rupture between Republican regulars and social and religious conservatives who have sided with Lambert. This is tricky. The compromise Nicholson favors, which simply reaffirms the party’s opposition to partial birth, has been rejected by Lambert. Conservatives like him believe the party apparatus merely pays lip service to the pro-life cause. “The rank and file are discouraged because we say we’re committed to oppose partial-birth abortion,” says Lambert, who also heads the Texas Home Schooling Coalition. “Yet we turn around and spend tremendous amounts of money to support candidates who back President Clinton on this.” Most notably, the national party pumped $ 1.5 million into New Jersey last year, a portion of which aided the reelection of Gov. Christie Whitman. The governor vetoed a state ban on partial birth, but the Republican legislature overrode her.
Support for Whitman isn’t the only grievance of pro-lifers. They point to the paucity of pro-life speakers at the Republican national convention in 1996. And in Republican direct mail, the abortion issue is rarely, if ever, mentioned. Plus, the party has frequently discouraged candidates from invoking the pro-life issue in campaigns. “The party is operationally pro- choice,” says consultant Jeffrey Bell. “Anything that elevates the issue rhetorically, they’re against.” Lambert makes another point: Republicans have withheld funds from candidates before, so why not this time? “I didn’t hear any screams of ‘litmus test,’ ‘big tent,’ or ‘slippery slope’ when the RNC denounced David Duke.” The former Klansman won the GOP nomination for governor of Louisiana in 1991.
Nicholson and his allies have no answer for this double standard. And the chairman, though a longtime foe of abortion himself, made a mistake when he criticized Lambert’s proposal as a “litmus test.” Pro-lifers regard this as a code phrase of pro-choice Republicans. Reminded of this, Nicholson now refers to a “formula” for withholding party funds, or a “blanket prohibition.” In announcing his opposition to Lambert, Nicholson was said in the New York Times to have embraced the “big tent” strategy of Lee Atwater, who served as Republican chairman under George Bush. Nicholson denied having used that phrase, which to social conservatives is an excuse for diluting the party’s official pro-life position.
But overall, Nicholson has made few flubs in fighting the Lambert proposal. He’s been helped by the arrival of a new chief of staff, Mitch Bainwol, one of the GOP’s smartest young operatives. Together, they quickly lined up their team of visible pro-lifers. One, DeVos, says she will lead the effort to kill the resolution. “I am not only opposed to partial-birth abortion, but to basically all abortions, except when the mother’s life is in danger,” she says. “I don’t think this resolution does anything to move our ball down the field.” Another, Weber, who was a founder of the House prolife caucus, says there’s fear among pro-lifers that “they’ll lose what they have, which is control of the party.” But instead, he argues, the resolution might drive away big GOP donors, who tend to be pro-choice. For his part, Barbour, now an RNC committeeman from Mississippi, sent a letter to fellow RNC members insisting voters, not the national party, should decide on candidates. He likened Lambert to liberal elitists “in their distrust of the people’s choices.”
Oddly enough, the Republican who stands to gain the most from heightened visibility of the partial-birth issue is one who opposed using it in 1996. At the time, Al D’Amato was chairman of the Senate Republican campaign committee. He leaned on Al Salvi in Illinois and Ronna Romney in Michigan not to run TV spots on partial birth. Now, running for reelection in New York, D’Amato will face a Democratic foe — Geraldine Fertaro, Chuck Schumer, or Mark Green — who wants partial-birth abortions to remain legal. The conventional wisdom has been that any of the three will use the broader abortion issue against D’Amato, who is pro-life. But he has an opportunity to flip the issue by stressing partial-birth abortion, which the other New York senator, Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has labeled infanticide. D’Amato would be crazy not to. Should he win, he will have the likes of Tim Lambert to thank.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
