Politics

GOP Gets Stuck On Abortion

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 27, 2000 / 8:19 PM EST / CBS

Going into Tuesday's presidential primary in New Hampshire, front-runners in the five-man Republican field haven't been able to shake one very divisive issue, CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports.

When it comes to abortion, Sen. John McCain would appreciate his own "don't ask, don't tell policy." Hounded by abortion questions again Thursday, he joked he'd rather tackle safer issues like the Confederate flag. He told reporters, "It's a tough business we're in."

What's got him rattled? Until recently, both he and George W. Bush deliberately downplayed their staunch anti-abortion records, making conciliatory statements like that from Bush Thursday: "Good people can disagree on that issue." Debating the night before, he had said that if he could write a constitutional amendment on abortion, it would say that the rights of the unborn are protected by law.

Both front-runners are looking to appeal to moderate voters. And the party establishment was hoping to keep favorite Bush from being shoved too far right on the issue, like Bob Dole was. According to Elizabeth Sherman, director of the Center for Women in Politics, "They had seen in the 1996 election that women voters had really made the difference for Bill Clinton against Dole and they decided that they were not going to let that happen again."

But nobody told Republican candidates Steve Forbes and Alan Keyes. They used the issue like a battering ram to push Bush to make strong pro-life statements in Iowa. Now they're pressing McCain in New Hampshire.

Keyes, who finished third to Bush and Forbes in Iowa, challenged McCain in the debate for saying earlier in the day that it would be a family decision should his teen-age daughter become pregnant and want an abortion.

Campaigning at a school in Bedford on Thursday, Keyes said, "No pro-life Republican can support McCain with any kind of confidence. I'll tell you right now pro-life people who support McCain are throwing away their votes on someone who will betray us. He does not have this conviction in his heart."

And from Forbes, "Dancing around Roe vs. Wade, people don't want that. They want to know where you stand."

That hard line may secure Forbes a third place finish in the Granite State -- and end up hurting the Republican Party. As a CBS News poll out Thursday shows, for every woman in New Hampshire who's pro-life, two or more others disagree.