Falwell announces voter drive, aiming to re-energize religious right

WASHINGTON - Hoping to re-energize the religious right, TV evangelist Jerry Falwell launched a campaign Friday to register 10 million voters this year through the nation's churches. There is no partisan motive, he said, but ''people who pray will probably vote all right, too.''

The announcement came a day after presidential contender George W. Bush sought to reach out from his conservative base to moderate and independent voters by meeting with a group of gay Republicans.

It also followed a brutal primary season in which Bush's closest challenger for the Republican nomination, Arizona Sen. John McCain, denounced Falwell and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson as ''agents of intolerance.''

''I don't think religious conservatives have lost any of their power. I think they've lost their enthusiasm,'' Falwell told reporters.

His effort was denounced as a ''shady shell game'' by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a private group that said Falwell was trying to help Bush in the election. The group said it had filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service alleging that such political activity would abuse a church's tax-exempt status.

David Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, said Falwell's effort seemed aimed at maintaining the religious right's ''influence in the political party, which is clearly on the wane.''

Falwell said the legalities of the effort had been researched. He also denied that the campaign was an effort to recover from the strong primary-season criticism from McCain, one of the Republicans' top two contenders.

''He did more toward energizing people of faith than, I have noticed, since Ronald Reagan,'' Falwell said. He described McCain as ''a man of faith'' who ''may have been misled politically with bad advice.'' He said he would write the senator and ask him to join the effort.

Although Bush and McCain share many conservative views, the Arizona senator drew considerable support from GOP moderates, independents and Democrats in this year's open primaries.

During a news conference at the National Press Club, Falwell announced the formation of ''People of Faith 2000.'' He said it would lead a seven-month drive to register at least 10 million new voters by urging pastors to solicit their support during church meetings.

The group is aiming to raise $18.6 million to pay for its operations, and Falwell pledged it would go out of existence on Nov. 8, the day after the election.

''It really is a civic thing, not a political thing, of registering voters without voter guides, believing that people who pray will probably vote all right, too,'' he said.

In response to a question, he added: ''You know and I know that the churches and pastors who allow me to assist them in this effort probably are not connected closely with Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson or Al Gore. That's reality. That means that clearly, the people who are registering to vote, the end result will be what the exit polls showed in Ohio and Virginia and other places in the primaries awhile back.''

During the primary season, Republican exit polls consistently showed that almost one-third of voters described themselves as members of the religious right. Bush won the support of about three-fourths of the religious right after more conservative candidates withdrew from the race.

''In reality, this is a highly partisan drive that Falwell himself has admitted is intended to help put George W. Bush in the White House,'' said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Church and State.

Falwell also said he had no problem with Bush's meeting with gay activists. When the governor emerged Thursday from the hourlong session at his Texas campaign headquarters, he said he was touched by the stories he heard but had not dropped his conservative beliefs such as his opposition to gay marriage.

''I think that's all the signal that people of faith need to know,'' Falwell said.

Another conservative, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, was less charitable on that.

''I would tell the governor that political pandering is going to kill his campaign, and it's eventually going to kill the Republican Party,'' said Buchanan, who left the GOP this campaign season.