MARIETTA, Ga. -- Here in the middle of the Bible Belt, a Democratic congressman has been airing a campaign commercial in which his opponent uses the word "scumbags," language sure to offend any God-fearing Georgian.
Which is exactly the point.
Like Democratic candidates around the country this fall, Rep. George "Buddy" Darden is trying to demonize his challenger. His goal is to scare away the Republican's fundamentalist Christian backers, whose votes could make the difference in this closely fought race.
The growing use of negative advertising to undermine the support of religious conservative voters is powerful testimony to the influence of the so-called religious right, which has become a force to be reckoned with in American politics.
By most estimates, conservative Christians make up between one-fourth and one-third of the Republican vote nationwide, and they are expected to have a big say in the selection of the party's 1996 presidential ticket.
Right now, they are angry with Bill Clinton and the Democrats, and opinion surveys indicate they're itching to vote. One recent national poll found that 71 percent of fundamentalists say they're following the midterm elections with a "great deal" of interest, a level of intensity that far exceeds that of Democrats and liberals, and, for that matter, other Republicans.
"In this year's election, you will see the largest percentage ever of self-identified Christian evangelical voters," predicts Ralph E. Reed Jr., executive director of the Christian Coalition, the organization founded in 1989 by the religious broadcaster Pat Robertson that is now leading the conservative religious movement.
"There will be big changes, thanks to the Christian vote, in races for House seats, Senate seats and governors."
One of many races the Christian Coalition has targeted is that of Mr. Darden, a moderate Democrat whose down-home personal style and influence as a member of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee have served him well, up to now, in this northwest Georgia district, where Lockheed Corp.'s military aircraft factory the largest private employer.
In the past, a Democrat like Mr. Darden, who delivers for his district in the form of multibillion-dollar defense contracts and takes a conservative line on social issues (he voted against federal funding for abortion and against lifting the ban on gays in the military), would not seem a likely target for conservative Christians. But his district is now solidly Republican, and his record fails to meet the more stringent standards of the Christian Coalition, which flunked him for his vote in favor of the Clinton budget, among others.
With his political career on the line, Mr. Darden recently launched a negative TV ad that tries to chip away at his opponent's religious support by portraying the Republican as a hypocrite.
"Bob Barr says he's the candidate of family values," declares Mr. Darden's attack ad. "Don't you think a candidate who preaches family values ought to practice family values?"
To make his case, Mr. Darden used a 1987 newspaper interview in which Mr. Barr uttered the word "scumbags" (to describe some clients he had defended as a criminal lawyer), plus a $613 medical bill that Mr. Barr's ex-wife went to court over in the mid-1980s after their bitter divorce. The ex-wife has come to Mr. Barr's defense.
In other races, particularly in areas of the South and Midwest with many religious conservatives, other Democrats are making similar efforts to suppress their opponents' evangelical support by raising character questions that might strike a nerve with conservative Christians.
In Georgia's governor's race, for example, incumbent Democrat Zell Miller, facing a tougher than expected challenge from businessman Guy Millner, is running ads that highlight the Republican's stock holdings in Las Vegas casinos.
'Values' issue
In a hard-fought North Carolina congressional contest, Democrat Richard Moore is airing TV ads which question whether his conservative Republican opponent, David Funderburk, "shares our values." The ad charges that Mr. Funderburk owes money from a past campaign and "even attacked the Rev. Billy Graham," as the camera zooms in on a page from a Funderburk book which states that the famous evangelist "was duped by Communist officials."
While Democratic candidates in some parts of the country may still try to score points by labeling their opponents as tools of religious extremists, that sort of rhetoric can backfire. Last summer, in an apparent effort to fire up the Democratic base, Rep. Vic Fazio of California, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, criticized Republicans for being willing to turn over their party to the "intolerant . . . religious right," only to find himself accused of "Christian-bashing" and intolerance in response.
"Democrats make a grave mistake when they beard the lion or religious-bash, because they are forfeiting votes along the way," says Alan Secrest, a pollster for Democratic congressional candidates. He predicts that the Christian Coalition will have a "significant impact" on next week's elections.
The most visible product of the Christian Coalition's campaign activities will be about 33 million "voter guides," to be distributed through thousands of churches across the country Sunday. Though the organization does not formally endorse candidates, Democrats say the guides are slanted to favor one candidate -- almost always the Republican.
"The Christian Coalition can kind of hide behind what they say is nonpartisanship, but they are still able to use the local churches to get their message out," says Andy Maddox, political director of the Georgia Democratic Party.
In some ways, the Christian Coalition has become the Republican Party's answer to labor unions on the Democratic side. Both provide grass-roots workers who can go door-to-door or make telephone calls; both communicate directly to members in ways that outsiders may find difficult to trace; and both are a lightning rod for criticism in election years.
A recent survey by the magazine Campaigns and Elections found that religious conservatives dominate the Republican Party organizations of 18 states, including California, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Oregon, and play a substantial role in at least 13 others (their role in Maryland was rated as "minor").
While many of the candidates backed by conservative Christians this fall are mainstream Republicans, a few come out of the movement itself. In either case, religious conservatives have benefited considerably from this year's political climate; it is Washington's failures that are the focus of attention, rather than their own, often divisive views on social issues abortion and homosexuality.
Against, not for
"They just run against the Clinton administration," notes Michael Cromartie of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, a close student of the movement. "They don't have to say, necessarily, what they're for."
For instance, Eugene Fontenot, a wealthy Republican physician, rated a good bet to upset Ken Bentsen, an investment banker and nephew of Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, in a Houston area congressional contest.
Dr. Fontenot is portrayed by Democrats as a religious fanatic -- he once said that "the Lord God would put it into our hearts to buy certain pieces of furniture" for his 13,000-square-foot mansion. But thanks to the dynamics of this election year, and by pumping almost $2 million of his own money into the race, Dr. Fontenot has managed to keep the campaign on the crime issue and Democrat Bentsen's ties to Bill Clinton.
Planting doubts about the character of candidates supported by conservative Christians may be the Democrats' most sophisticated response yet to the rise of the religious right. But the Christian Coalition's 33-year-old director claims it won't work.
"Those things are probably good strategy," says Mr. Reed, whose Virginia-based organization claims more than 1.3 million members and an annual budget in excess of $20 million. "But what they don't understand is that we don't vote based on personal lifestyle. We vote on a person's issue positions. Jimmy Carter, a born-again Christian, was probably the most devoutly evangelical president of this century. But he lost to the first divorced president in history, Ronald Reagan, who got a big share of the evangelical vote."