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From the middle, we can't see the right

Ellis Henican

10:26 PM EDT, August 30, 2004

It was a long city block and about a million miles from center stage at Madison Square Garden.

But the corner of Ninth Avenue and 33rd Street, right outside the swinging door of the Cheyenne Diner, was as close as Randall Terry could get to the real action yesterday.

His passionate belief -- abortion is baby-killing, period -- is shared by social and religious conservatives everywhere.

These people are the very heart and soul of the Republican base. And their views are embraced by the vast majority of the delegates in town for the Republican National Convention. Or so the polls all say.

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But no one was inviting Randall Terry inside.

Terry, who was standing on the sidewalk in a wilting khaki suit, is the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. He has worked for years trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. He has blocked the doors to dozens of abortion clinics.

He once even arranged to plop a fetus into Bill Clinton's hands. That was 1992, when the Democrats came to New York for their convention.

So of course, with the Republicans here, Terry was back as well, looking for friends this time and poring carefully over the convention speakers' list. He didn't much like what he saw.

"Rudy Giuliani," Terry said, his face scrunching up like he'd just been forced to suck on a lemon.

"George Pataki." Same look.

"Arnold Schwarzenegger." And again.

"These guys must not become the poster boys of our party," Terry said. "What are they doing up there in prime time? They're all pro-abortion. We're abandoning the base of this party. It's political cross-dressing is what it is. Why hide what the party really stands for?"

Randall Terry isn't alone among right-wingers in being upset that the Republicans are hiding who they really are. Family-values firebrand Phyllis Schlafly has been raising similar concerns about the moderate "political celebrities" seizing center stage. So has veteran conservative strategist Paul Weyrich.

"As an Orthodox Christian," he told one interviewer the other day, "I am outraged that men like this would be highlighted."

Their complaints have almost completely been swept aside by Karl Rove and the party's other top strategists. This election, they say, will be won or lost in the middle of the political spectrum. And those swing voters aren't like to be swayed by hard-core arguments against stem-cell research, against abortion rights or for prayer in public school. "Abortion is worse than slavery," Terry said yesterday.

What swing voters are going to be convinced by that?

But hearing Terry talk, it was hard not to sympathize with the consistency of his anti-abortion views. If the party really believes abortion is murder, why feature so many speakers who do not?

And it isn't just abortion. The public face of this convention -- the prime-time public face, anyway -- is far more moderate than the delegates or the party or the candidates themselves.

If the election is really about a tiny group of swing voters, why risk alienating them with all that difficult principle?

But listening to the speeches last night, it was hard not to wonder where the real Republicans had gone.

Had they turned pro-immigrant, pro-gay, pro-gun control like Rudy?

Were they embracing the California moderation of Arnold?

Did they suddenly believe in the heavy taxes and the heavy spending of George?

Of course they didn't. It was winning they believed in more.

And all of a sudden, I was feeling for the hard-core Republican right. I was ready to hand a microphone to the Terrys, the Schlaflys and the Weyrichs.

Here they are, considered inconvenient now, sincere in their difficult beliefs, and the party they helped to build wants to hide them in a closet.

Free Tom DeLay, I say.

Take the gag off Dick Armey's mouth!

Let Jerry Falwell speak!

Aren't people who hold firm beliefs a crucial part of the Republican Party anymore?