In an eight-horse primary, Senate candidates court religious conservatives, who they see as up for grabs.
By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published June 21, 2004
TAMPA - As U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez discusses his Catholic faith, an adviser passes out cards asking pastors to pray for him or join the Pro-Family Leaders for Mel Martinez Committee.
Former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum is introduced at Sunday services at Idlewild Baptist in Tampa by a friend who calls him the most experienced candidate and "a believer" in Jesus Christ.
Miami lawyer Larry Klayman tells a Christian TV interviewer in Tampa that he would not vote to confirm federal judges unless they agree to strike down the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.
"That is my litmus test," Klayman says. "Roe vs. Wade is unconstitutional."
As few as 300,000 Republicans could pick the nominee on Aug. 31, a winner-take-all election with no runoff. Candidates view religious conservative voters as up grabs, particularly after state Sen. Daniel Webster of Winter Garden, quit the race. He had broad appeal among those voters.
In an eight-candidate Republican primary, Senate candidates are using various strategies to appeal to religious conservatives who could determine the outcome. Just as Democratic politicians visit black churches in every campaign, Republicans are rallying the faithful - literally.
Martinez hired John Dowless, a political strategist and former Florida director of the Christian Coalition. Dowless set up a lunch last week at Landry's Seafood House in Tampa where Martinez and his wife, Kitty, told their story with the help of a video that takes viewers back to the early days of Castro's regime in Cuba.
The audience included about 40 pastors and leaders of faith-based groups such as Family First of Tampa and the Pinellas Crisis Pregnancy Center.
At 15, Martinez was airlifted from Cuba to Florida in a Catholic program called Operation Pedro Pan, and was separated from his parents for four years. He went on to become the top elected official in Orange County and the first Cuban-American to serve in the Cabinet when President Bush named him housing secretary in 2000.
As Martinez spoke in favor of the "sanctity of life" and defined marriage as only between a man and a woman, Dowless distributed cards that asked pastors if they were willing to be involved in the campaign or "pray for Mel Martinez."
"It's an easy sell. When they get to know him, they like him," Dowless said of Martinez.
The Rev. Jimmy Huggins of New Life Church in Dunedin said he liked Martinez's "passion" and his emphasis on the need to confirm Bush's judicial nominees. But he also wants to know more about another candidate, Johnnie Byrd.
"The judicial nominees being confirmed - that's very important to me, and the pro-family, pro-life subjects are extremely important to me," said Huggins, a Republican.
Richard Pinsky, an adviser to Republican hopeful Doug Gallagher of Miami, said Martinez was "pandering" to social conservatives. Pinsky, who worked extensively with the religious right while at the Republican National Committee more than a decade ago, said religious voters are not monolithic, and added their size and influence is exaggerated by other candidates.
Pinsky said religious voters will discover that the candidates generally are in agreement on most major social issues. He predicted many of them will abandon Martinez when they learn he was a trial lawyer who once supported Democrats.
"They're all pro-life but one of them is a trial attorney," Pinsky said of the GOP field. "And that moves numbers."
Pinsky, a veteran of many campaigns, knows what lies ahead. He envisions "voter guides," like those distributed by the Christian Coalition, to be given to churchgoers that will use what he called "fringe issues" to portray Martinez as the strongest ally of the president and with the most antiabortion views.
While the Senate candidates are like-minded on most social issues - all oppose abortion and gay marriage, for instance - differences have emerged on stem cell research or whether a federal hate crime law should protect gays.
Martinez, Byrd and Klayman oppose loosening restrictions on stem cell research. Gallagher, who lost a brother to diabetes, and McCollum favor expanded research.
"I am pro-life," McCollum said, "but I also believe that a critical part of being pro-life is helping the living."
Candidates are probing each others' pasts for signs of political advantages with religious conservatives. One such issue: homosexuality.
Martinez's campaign charged Friday that in Congress McCollum voted in favor of federal grants promoting "anti-Christian and offensive pornographic art," and supported a provision in the hate-crime law "giving homosexuals and other minorities preferential treatment over other Americans in the judicial system."
"If somebody commits a crime against anybody based solely on race, sexual orientation, gender, or whatever it is of that nature," McCollum said in an interview last week, "then I believe they should get extra added punishment at the end of the day."
Answering Martinez's criticism, McCollum cited a string of votes in which the former U.S. representative opposed spending arts money for obscenity or to denigrate religious beliefs.
McCollum, a Brooksville native who served 20 years in Congress and ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2000, was escorted to services at Tampa's Idlewild Baptist Church last week by Barbara Wilcox, a retired real estate broker.
Citing his experience, she said: "We would be so stupid to throw all away all the years of experience this man has. He's who I am going to support. I take him all over town."
McCollum also has the personal support of the Christian Coalition's current chairman, Pat Neal of Bradenton, a former state senator.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Johnnie Byrd tells voters he sponsored a gay-marriage ban in his first year in the Legislature, and this year championed a proposed constitutional amendment that could require girls to obtain parental notification before getting an abortion. Voters will decide Nov. 2 whether to give lawmakers the power to require the notification.
Byrd, who has championed Alzheimer's research and cites Ronald Reagan as a personal hero, also opposes lifting restrictions on stem cell research, a stand that puts him at odds with Nancy Reagan.
"It's a matter of principle for him, and it's a real easy call," said Byrd's campaign manager, Wayne Garcia.
In West Palm Beach last week, Byrd stopped at First Baptist Church to chat with a handful of voters including Mike Hedler, 56, a church staffer who assists with parenting classes and tutoring single mothers.
A Vietnam veteran and onetime heroin addict, Hedler credits God with ending his drug habit and turning his life around. He said his concerns are antiabortion issues and prohibiting any stem cell research.
"I look at what they stand for," Hedler said of the candidates. "If he stands on the principles I stand on, he's got my vote."
