toledoblade.com --

COLUMBUS - On election night in 2000, it looked like George W. Bush had lost the map that Republicans use to win Ohio.

He failed to keep Vice President Al Gore's victory in Cuyahoga County to 100,000 votes or less, losing by 166,000. He failed to climb out of that hole in Franklin County, losing to Mr. Gore.

Mr. Bush also did not reach his goal of 60 percent of the vote in GOP-friendly Hamilton County, taking 53 percent.

But Mr. Bush won big in rural counties, carried the state's suburbs, and claimed Ohio's 21 electoral votes.

Backers of Mr. Bush say that unlike Bill Clinton, Mr. Gore did not fare well in southeastern Ohio because of his support for environmental regulations and gun control - and the decision to stop TV ads three weeks before election day was a costly error.

The landscape is very different now: 9/11, a budget surplus that is now a deficit, the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan; a troubled economy showing signs of recovery, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein but continues to face insurgents bent on driving the United States out.

The President's backers, however, stress that small-town and suburban Ohioans embraced Mr. Bush's values four years ago and their continued support will enable him to carry the battleground state again and perhaps Michigan.

Some say it's too early to tell what role religion and the nation's culture war, which one observer described as the "cultural gulf between left and right, liberal and social conservative, secularist and fundamentalist," will play.

"Does it matter more than Hispanic or African-American voters, or male or female?" asked Jeff Williams, vice president of a Lansing-based policy analysis firm.

"It's too early to tell what the top five drivers of this race will be."

Because of its diversity, Ohio is considered a microcosm ofthe nation. That means the Christian right must vie with other interest groups to influence the presidential contests.

"The economy is always important and foreign policy obviously is a big issue, but the values debate is central to this election," said state Sen. Jim Jordan (R., Urbana). "I think the President should talk about it more; why he is pro-life and how he understands what marriage is."

If the 20 states that went Democratic in the last three presidential races go for Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts on Nov. 2, he will have 253 electoral college votes. In need of 17 more to take the White House, Ohio would put him over the top.

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a Republican, said, "Ohio has lagged behind the rest of the nation in economic recovery. If you are Kerry, you shine the spotlight on economic issues: health care, access to health care, and jobs.

"If you are the President and you understand the difference between you and your Democratic opponent last time, you shine a spotlight on the social and cultural issues, and taxes," Mr. Blackwell said.

Mr. Blackwell added the race will be won or lost in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Oregon, New Mexico, and New Hampshire.

In 1996, when Bill Clinton defeated Republican Bob Dole, evangelical Christians comprised 23 percent of the electorate in Ohio. That percentage dropped to 17 percent in 2000. Nationwide, it meant 4 million fewer evangelical Christians went to the polls.

The factors include states such as Texas and South Carolina where the Bush-Gore race was not close and turnout suffered as a result, and the diminished voice and budget of the Christian Coalition, which in 1999 ran into problems with the Internal Revenue Service for backing GOP candidates.

Also, ineffective get-out-the-vote efforts in some states, including Ohio, affected turnout by evangelical Christians, said John Green, a political-science professor and director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

Mr. Bush's "nuanced" positions on abortion and gay rights in 2000 have been replaced by his signing of a federal law against "partial-birth abortion" and support for a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, Dr. Green said.

Michael Griswold is head of the social conservatives coalition for Mr. Bush's campaign in northwest Ohio.

The campaign is contacting church leaders throughout the region to make sure they know that the President has adhered to "Judeo-Christian principles."

The outreach includes Catholics because of Mr. Bush's position on abortion, and Jews because of his support for Israel and the elimination of one of its threats, Iraqi dictator Saddam, said Mr. Griswold, a Toledo real-estate appraiser and broker.

Mr. Kerry has not taken any steps to appeal to what Steven Waldman, founder of the religion Web site beliefnet.com, calls "freestyle evangelicals," Dr. Green said. They are Christians who have lower levels of church attendance than evangelicals, choose Christian rock over the Rev. Pat Robertson's televised sermons, are less likely to take the Bible literally, and care about issues important to moderate Republicans such as the environment, Dr. Green said.

After backing Mr. Bush in 2000, many have become skeptical of Mr. Bush, Dr. Green said.

"Part of it is the war in Iraq, the slow economic recovery, the large tax cuts, and the hands-off attitude toward the environment," he said.

Jennifer Palmieri, Mr. Kerry's press secretary in Ohio, said the campaign is not "targeting voters based on their religious beliefs."

"You should not use religion for political gain. The Bush campaign, by contrast, is happy to have a strategy to manipulate religion for political purposes.

"John Kerry is a Catholic. John Edwards is a Methodist. Both are men of deep faith, but they know that Catholic families and Methodist families and Jewish families and Islamic families and Christian families have the same concerns as any other families in Ohio. They want leaders who are strong and have integrity and understand their problems," Ms. Palmieri said.

Mr. Kerry has said he opposes same-sex marriage, but he also opposes a federal constitutional amendment banning it.

That position could cut into his support among religious African-Americans in Ohio and Michigan, Mr. Blackwell said.

The Rev. Marvin McMickle, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, said Mr. Kerry must reach out to African-American churchgoers.

"If he's going to reach out after the Democratic convention, it may be too late. George Bush is reaching out in interesting ways to black churches," said the Rev. McMickle. The President is promoting his "faith-based initiatives" proposal, along with opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion, and that could prompt some blacks not to vote Nov. 2, said the Rev. McMickle, a former Democratic congressional and U.S. Senate candidate.

"I hope Kerry won't make the mistake of taking the black vote for granted. He is uninspiring as a person. If his campaign doesn't inspire, there's no reason to assume black America will line up," he said.

David Caldwell, a gay-rights activist in Cleveland Heights, said the debate over how religious voters will affect the presidential race in Ohio and Michigan should include people of faith who are gay or lesbian.

And like dissent and political debate within denominations, it's not a clear picture, he said.

"Because gay and lesbian issues are so tied up with religion for our opposition, our side has a less clear message about religion. Our side is made up of a coalition of people who feel that either religion should not be part of politics, or 'I am not religious,' or religion should be a part of politics and 'My religion says we should love everyone.'

"Because our side has three different kinds of people involved, we cannot talk about religion at all. We cannot represent all three sides," he said.

In 2000, Mr. Gore carried Michigan and despite success by the Christian right in the 1990s, Democrat Debbie Stabenow narrowly unseated the GOP incumbent in the U.S. Senate race, Spencer Abraham.

"There is no movement in Michigan called the 'Christian right'; there are individual organizations that support the Christian right agenda" said James Penning, a political science professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids who has written extensively about religion and politics. "Some groups have come and gone. Some have declined."

Without a strong chapter of the Christian Coalition in Michigan, Mr. Bush must rely on groups that have opposed abortion and try to split the Catholic vote with Mr. Kerry, Dr. Penning said.

The challenge for both candidates is to navigate shifting trends among the electorate.

"There is a culture war going on nationwide, as well as in Michigan. More and more, the distinctions are not between members of denominations, but between people who are conservative theorists and secularists with a different world view," Dr. Penning said.

The reason is as Ohio and Michigan - and the entire nation - becomes more diverse, new perspectives such as the challenge to religion from the "sexualization" of culture are confronting the nation's "Judeo-Christian" ethics, Dr. Penning said.

"All these factors have created a situation where there is no dominant group in this country. That means increased conflict. With diverse views and people who hold them strongly, we will see political and social conflict continue," he said.

Contact James Drew:
jdrew@theblade.com or
614-221-0496.

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