Election '82: No Thunder from the Right

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Of all the senatorial races this fall, the one in Maryland was supposed to be a special New Right showcase. Attacks on one-term Democratic Incumbent Paul Sarbanes would, NCPAC hoped, push malingering liberals in neighboring Washington onto the path of conservative righteousness. Said Dolan: "When members of Congress drove home, we wanted them to hear an advertisement against Paul Sarbanes saying he was anti-Reagan and should be defeated. We wanted them to see the television ads and have them say, 'It isn't going to take much for them to go after me for the same reason.' " Instead, NCPAC's most expensive campaign ($625,000) turned the slumbering Sarbanes into an active campaigner. What Sarbanes called the "alien presence" of NCPAC became such an issue that Opponent Lawrence Hogan finally threw up his hands on television and declared, "I hereby denounce NCPAC." The Democrats, apparently agreeing, swept Maryland, and Sarbanes won, 63% to 37%.

In a flight of competitive hyperbole, the Democratic National Committee sent out a fund-raising letter during the campaign dubbing North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms "the New Right's Prince of Darkness." Helms emerged last week as a prince without a kingdom. Although Helms' own right-wing political action committee, called the Congressional Club, raised nearly $10 million, all six congressional candidates he supported lost in his home state.

The Conservative Caucus' Phillips insisted that "1982 was the year that demonstrated that conservative themes are still valid." But the Helms debacle suggested that the New Right's stand on social issues is losing its potency. Helms' well-publicized failure in September to get his package of prime New Right issues—school prayer, abortion and limiting the power of the federal courts—through the Senate hurt him badly. Nationwide, in this election at least, the pro-choice side seemed to have the advantage on the abortion issue.

Connaught Marshner, a Weyrich colleague, claimed that the New Right's archfoes, the feminists, did little better in defeating enemies on their own hit list. But the National Organization for Women, which had targeted certain members of the Florida and Illinois legislatures after they had defeated the Equal Rights Amendment, said it had won enough victories to get the measure passed in those states if it were to come up again.

Only 6% of the voters, according to President Reagan's own pollster, Richard Wirthlin, completely believe in the New Right agenda. Nonetheless, the New Right leadership last week saw no need to compromise. The Moral Majority's Ron Godwin vowed renewed efforts for school prayer and against abortion. And Fund Raiser Richard Viguerie, searching for new motivating issues, called for an anti-elitist "new populist revolt." At a somber New Right election-night party, Viguerie declared, "If we win or lose, it's not our doing. God's will is going to be done. He's got His plan." Last week, at least, God's plan seemed to be a moderate one. —By Jane O'Reilly. Reported by B.J. Phillips/Atlanta and John F. Stacks/Washington