Playing Politics

PRESIDENT REAGAN'S recent speech to the National Association of Evangelicals convention showed that regardless of political realities in Washington, the conservative fires of the "Reagan revolution" still need only a bellows to heat them up again once in a while. Once again the "Great Communicator" showed his skill; he managed to reassure the most conservative listeners present of his positions on the "social issues" mainly abortion and school player without having to defend what many in the New Right see as a poor record of political action on those issues.

Surprisingly, the many critics of the President's so-called "Darth Vader" speech misinterpreted its real function. They have focused solely on the text of the speech to prove that Reagan has not changed his positions on the social issues "as if a president, outside of a great national crisis or clear factual evidence, would be likely to do a public about face and antagonize a large portion of his constituency. What they have failed to note is that in reality. Reagan has done little to further these causes. Not even the symbolic value of having a president who supports prayer in public schools and opposes abortion has helped win votes for these positions. That, after all, is what has upset the New Right and sparked the speech's most likely purpose--to quiet rumblings in Reagan's own party.

The policy emphasis of the speech was the president's opposition to the nuclear freeze--the bulk of it merely an intensification of his standard anti-freeze position. The president did refer to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," but in general the speech recalled his address to the British Parliament last June, in which he called for an effort to promote democracy throughout the world. Most of the net effect of the evangelical convention speech, therefore, was political, silencing those on the New Right who have wondered whether the President has forgotten them. Just as commentators on Chinese affairs have noted that parts of speeches by Chinese leaders are designed to satisfy the large Marist port of the Communist Party which joined during the fervor of the Cultural Revolution, so Reagan's speeches may be intended to satisfy his own domestic critics, particularly those on the right, whom one would not ordinarily expect to be critical of the president.

The president probably believes what he said to the convention. But he has also shown that he realize how difficult it would be to pass measures dealing with abortion and school prayer and therefore has decided not to expend much political capital on those issues. Sending a school prayer Constitutional amendment to Congress with words of support is one thing: intensive lobbying such as the President did for the tax cut and the AWACS sale is quite another, and Reagan has shown little public enthusiasm for the latter where abortion and school prayer are concerned.

Reagan has demonstrated before that he likes to speak his mind on occasions without regard for the media fallout. He did so on his recent visit to Massachusetts by wishing (though not suggesting) the abolition of the corporate income tax. Similarly, his speech to the evangelicals probably reflected personal belief, not a public policy agenda. Little the president said was new, and Reagan's record of the past two years shows that even a large percentage of what is old won't get any further towards becoming law.

Harry Truman was far more bellicose in his private notes and letters, it is now known, than he was in public. A President's private thoughts need not always influence his public actions. The speech to the evangelicals was simply Ronald Reagan opening his heart, quieting his New Right constituents with assurances of agreement that he would not make in Washington. The several political points he made in the process were secondary. The speech will provide considerable grist for the intellectual historian of half a century hence trying to discover "the real Ronald Reagan." But aside from what appears to be renewed opposition to the nuclear freeze movement, it provides few clues as to the future course of the Administration.