Pollsters, Strategists Laud Success Of Consulting Firm Advising Democratic Candidates To Speak About Reducing Abortions

Some Democratic Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters are crediting Mara Vanderslice and her consulting firm Common Good Strategies -- which advised candidates who support abortion rights to speak about reducing demand for the procedure -- for helping some Democrats make "deep inroads" among "theological conservatives" in four states, the New York Times reports. According to the Times, exit polls from the November 2006 elections show that Vanderslice's candidates in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania faired about 10 percentage points better among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters than Democrats faired nationally. Such voters make up about one-third of the electorate nationwide. Vanderslice and her business partner Eric Sapp persuaded candidates not to avoid issues such as abortion but advised candidates not to argue that Jesus was interested only in social justice and not interested in sexual morality, the Times reports. "The Gospel has both in it," Sapp said, adding, "You can't act like caring about abortion and family issues makes you a judgmental fool." In Michigan and Ohio, Vanderslice and Sapp asked nuns to volunteer at phone banks to urge voters who were Catholic or abortion-rights opponents to support Democratic candidates, and some of the nuns said they made their case in "religious terms," according to the Times. Vanderslice and Sapp advised candidates to speak at conservative religious schools, to speak privately with moderate and conservative members of the clergy and to purchase early in the campaign commercials on Christian radio stations. John Green, a University of Akron pollster who studies religion and politics, said Common Good Strategies was "pretty successful" at helping candidates less known for their religion, such as Govs. Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.) and Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.) and Sen.-elect Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). According to the Times, some Republicans said the group's work was "incidental" compared with issues such as the Iraq war and corruption, and others said the group advised candidates who were already uncommonly open about their religion (Kirkpatrick, New York Times, 12/26/06).

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