c. 2004 Religion News Service

MACUNGIE, Pa. _ President Bush’s public profession of his faith as a born-again Christian plays well with his conservative base, but it troubles some voters here in the Lehigh Valley, a critical section of this critical state.

With a heavy Democratic vote likely to come out of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and their surrounding suburbs, most analysts believe Bush cannot afford to lose the Lehigh Valley if he is to hold Pennsylvania, one of the few states still deemed competitive in the Nov. 2 election.

Concern about Bush’s strong religious feelings surfaced among a group of 11 voters, some Democrats and some Republicans, who joined in a pre-election discussion last week at the Air Products Co. facility here.

“I don’t want to live in a theocracy,” said one of the group, Rachel Roland of Germansville.

She was not alone.

Ann Padjen and Georgeann Zitkus, both of nearby Allentown and both Republicans, said they’ll vote for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, citing concerns for women’s rights and their pro-choice view on abortion. Padjen said she finds an “utter disrespect for individual rights” in the Bush administration.

These rumblings haven’t escaped the notice of Republican Party leaders. Bob Lovette, the Lehigh County GOP chairman, said many voters in this part of the state _ largely Republican but politically moderate _ think Bush is too close to Christian fundamentalists.

Asked how Bush will do here on Election Day, Lovette said simply, “It’s going to be tough.”

There are signs here and elsewhere in eastern Pennsylvania of a keep-your-distance strategy toward Bush among some GOP candidates.

At a debate Thursday night at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Charlie Dent, the Republican nominee for the open 15th Congressional District seat, got through almost 90 minutes without once mentioning the president’s name. His Democratic opponent, Joe Driscoll, more than made up for the omission, ripping Bush regularly.

Dent insisted in an interview later that Bush would win his district. But Dent, a heavy favorite, is expected to run well ahead of the top of his ticket. “Bush needs Dent more than Dent needs Bush,” said Pat Browne, a GOP member of the state House.

Most signs suggest Bush faces an uphill fight for Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes.

Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College and director of the Pennsylvania Poll, says, “It’s close here, but leaning toward Kerry.” One reason, he said, is that Kerry has “succeeded in decoupling terrorism and the war in Iraq.”

A Quinnipiac Poll out over the weekend reported a 51 percent to 46 percent lead for Kerry, up from only 2 percentage points a few weeks back. Rick Robb, a veteran GOP hand who ran Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 and 1984 Pennsylvania presidential campaigns, said he expects Bush to win nationally but “can’t see how Bush can win here.”

That hasn’t stopped the president from trying. He was back in the state last week, speaking in Wilkes-Barre, about an hour north of here, on Friday. The day before he paid a call on Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Philadelphia. Bush banks heavily on cutting into Pennsylvania’s big Catholic vote on the strength of his opposition to abortion and some thinly veiled support from Catholic prelates.

Pennsylvania does have a relatively high number of evangelical Christians, Robb said. Across much of rural central and north-central Pennsylvania, and to a lesser extent in the old, decaying coal and steel towns of the southwest, evangelicals are a potent political force for Bush, he said.

Whether they can offset their less dogmatic brethren in the upscale suburbs around Philadelphia and in the Lehigh Valley around Allentown and Bethlehem is a big piece of the Pennsylvania puzzle.

“It’s high church vs. low church,” said Joseph McLaughlin, a former senior aide to Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell and now assistant dean for governmental affairs at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Like Ohio, its neighbor, Pennsylvania is several states in one, with differing regional interests and cultural conditioning.

Roughly one-third of the entire Pennsylvania vote resides in Philadelphia and its four suburban counties _ Montgomery, Chester, Delaware and Bucks. In the city, an already huge Democratic registration advantage has been swollen by some 100,000 new voters. The suburbs are normally Republican, but tilted to Democrat Al Gore four years ago and made the difference as Gore took the state.

Carol Rubley, a GOP state House member from Republican Chester County, echoed what other Republicans in the state’s vote-heavy eastern region reported: Democratic activity is unusually high, and Bush’s vote probably will fall short of the vote for Republican state and local candidates.

“I’ve never seen so many Democratic lawn signs here,” Rubley said.

Allegheny County, with Pittsburgh as its base, and the state’s northwestern Great Lake corner around Erie, are two more likely Democratic bastions. But the state’s southwestern corner is a battleground, Madonna said.

That region is historically Democratic, dating to its heyday as a steel and coal center, and the collapse of those industries has made jobs and health care issues favorable to Kerry. But it’s also culturally conservative, having backed Reagan, and is a stronghold of hunters and the National Rifle Association, a plus for Bush.

“It’s conflicted,” Madonna said.

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Senior citizens are a voting bloc up for grabs in all regions. Bush’s bid for their support is based on his Medicare prescription drug plan. But it may have backfired on him, said Fred Griesbach, Pennsylvania director of AARP, which endorsed the Bush plan.

Seniors, he said, are disturbed by Bush’s unwillingness to let Medicare negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, and his opposition to importing cheaper drugs from Canada on the basis that they might not be safe.

“They’re not buying the safety argument,” Griesbach said in a brief interview. “It’s all about cost, not safety.”

MO/PH/JL END FARMER

(John Farmer is national political correspondent for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)