Gore gets religion

But can he co-opt the GOP's embrace of federal dollars for religious charities?

By Christopher Shea

Jun 15, 1999 | It's obligatory to complain that our presidential campaigns are devoid of policy content and dominated by spin. As a result, it's gone largely unnoticed that we already have, at this early point in the election calendar, a certifiable Big Idea to chew on: Al Gore's proposal to funnel federal money to "faith-based organizations."

With his "new partnership" vision, Gore erased what could have been a major difference between next year's presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees. Yet, in a very Clintonian way, Gore may also have set in motion political forces that he wont be able to control, and which could end up burning him. Gores justification for supporting faith-based groups with federal dollars is the same rationale that supporters of private-school vouchers use to support their argument.

Having set the faith-based organizations' ball in motion, Gore must now attempt to maintain the distinction between religious drug counseling groups and religious educational programs. That distinction won't be easy. He could make a narrow, legalistic argument -- that schools are a unique government responsibility, for example -- but that isn't going to cut it with the true believers. Just as with Clinton and welfare, Gore could be steering the Democratic Party toward defeat on vouchers through short-sighted rhetoric meant to score political points in the here and now.

But that possibility has done little to slow the vice president as he attempts to make an impression amid the white noise on the campaign trail. Gore elicited amens from a gathering of Salvation Army members in Atlanta last month when he called for a "new partnership" between the government and religious groups that run drug-treatment and job-placement programs. Basically, he proposed splitting the difference between an over-reliance on private volunteerism (President Bush's "thousand points of light" route) and the public bankrolling of the Great Society. If faith-based organizations can help addicts kick on a shoestring budget, why not have Washington lend them a hand? Republicans, including George W. Bush, were pushing this idea long before Gore, but the vice president set it squarely before the electorate as no one else has.

But in the process of defending his proposal, Gore is treading into murky waters for Constitutional purists who insist upon a clear separation of church and state. Whereas Republicans see a seamless connection between using federal dollars for faith-based groups and federally-funded school vouchers, Gore is a staunch opponent of vouchers. Last July, Gore told cheering members of the National Educational Association that vouchers were "fraudulent" and "dangerous" -- a threat to public education.

In his search for a political "third way," Gore might have broken with the Democratic tradition completely and argued that public money ought to go to private and religious organizations of every stripe -- schools as well as church charities. Instead, he has gone for a Clintonian compromise, endorsing Republican principles yet deploying them in pursuit of slightly more centrist policies. Even if you assume that his argument is heartfelt (Republicans have accused him of simply trying to co-opt one of "their issues"), Gore is playing a dangerous game.

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