CAMPAIGN 2000 II: Testing, Testing - Geroge W. Bush must promise to support pro-life litmus test

GEORGE W. BUSH got through the Republican primaries without signing any pledges to use a pro-life "litmus test" to pick his running mate or judicial nominees. Good. Now it's time for him to start applying a pro- life litmus test.

The reason pro-lifers are concerned about the makeup of the federal judiciary is obvious. Pro-lifers want the Republican vice-presidential nominee to be one of them for two reasons. First, that person could very well end up being president. Second, the selection of a nominee who favors keeping abortion legal would be a major symbolic defeat-and in politics, symbolism is never "mere."

The political symbolism of pro-life pledges, however, is terrible. If the candidate accepts a litmus test, he is seen as buckling under pressure, which diminishes his appeal to the electorate. An explicit litmus test for vice presidents also diminishes a presidential candidate's ability to garner endorsements from Republican politicians who favor abortion rights and imagine themselves as possible veeps.

And any pro-life litmus test makes both the candidate and social conservatives look intolerant. Most people do not think that otherwise well-qualified people should be excluded from an office "just because they're pro-choice." But it is impossible for views on abortion to be incidental to the selection of a running mate: If a pro-choicer were picked, it would almost certainly be because he was pro-choice. Yet the public's sentiment must nevertheless be dealt with.

The way to deal with it is to have a pro-life litmus test without announcing it. Bush, in other words, should refuse to say in public that he will definitely pick a pro-lifer, but then pick someone who just happens to be one. After all, most Republican politicians are pro-life; the odds are that an unbiased selection would yield a pro-lifer. The role of social conservatives, meanwhile, is not to issue demands but to organize so that the selection of a pro-choicer is unthinkable.

This is how pro-lifers have succeeded in practice. Their pledge drives didn't work in either 1996 or 2000; the Republican nominees won't take the pledges. The ticket stays pro-life because there is an informal litmus test: The balance of forces in the Republican party does not permit a pro-choicer on the ticket. The delegates to the Repub lican convention are heavily pro-life. They would not necessarily reject a pro- choice vice-presidential nominee. But there would certainly be a nasty fight on the floor before they accepted one, even a superstar like Colin Powell. George W. Bush won't want that, any more than Bob Dole did.

Even conservatives who are themselves pro-choice should be grateful that pro-lifers wield this veto. Abortion is the only possible basis for organizing a challenge to a vice-presidential nominee; and it is also a useful index of a candidate's political philosophy generally. Republican politicians who favor abortion rights are far more likely than their pro- life peers also to favor racial preferences, lavish social spending, gun controls, and regulation. Partly this is because politicians who have the intestinal fortitude to withstand the cultural pressure on abortion will be able to stand firm on less difficult issues as well.

Pro-choice Republicans should be grateful, too, because the pro-life veto-contrary to conventional wisdom-helps the Republican presidential candidate in the fall. It may be true that more voters describe themselves as "pro-choice" than as "pro-life" (although those terms mean different things to different people, and, in any case, the margin has been shrinking). But among people who actually vote on abortion, pro- lifers vastly outnumber pro-choicers.

Hard-core pro-choicers, of course, would not vote for Bush even if he made Hillary Clinton his veep. The political rationale for a pro-choice veep would be to attract a narrowly defined set of voters-those who are worried enough that Bush will end abortion that the issue would sway their vote, but whose worries can be alleviated by a veep pick.

Against this tiny group must be set a few million pro-lifers who would desert the Republicans in such a case. At this point comes the inevitable question: Where would they go? They may be able to go to Pat Buchanan. What is more important is that in America, discouraged voters don't have to go anywhere; they can stay home. The pundits are arguing that Bush has so solidified his support on the right that he has the freedom to name a pro-choice running mate. But pro-lifers rallied so strongly behind Bush in the first place because John McCain was considered unsound on abortion-even though McCain had a solid pro-life voting record. Many pro- lifers-maybe not a majority, but certainly a large fraction-would be even quicker to turn away from a ticket with an explicit supporter of abortion rights on it.

Political considerations militate particularly strongly against the selection of a pro-choice Catholic such as Penn sylvania governor Tom Ridge or New York governor George Pataki. The Catholic bishops would object strenuously in either case. After the controversies over the House chaplain and Bush's visit to Bob Jones University, it would look as though Republicans were saying that for them, the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic. As Crisis magazine's Catholic-voter project has recently documented, "active" (i.e., church-going) Catholics are a key swing vote. They are mostly pro-life, but even the pro-choicers among them might be subtly influenced by an implicit slap at Rome. If Bush really wants a pro-choicer, let him pick a Protestant. But better to pick a pro-lifer instead.