Senator's backers push for Right to Life endorsement

ANCHORAGE - Alaska Right to Life members have been lobbied heavily to endorse Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the U.S. Senate race, according to the group's president.

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On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, the young, conservative Pennsylvania Republican, met for an hour in special session with most of the state Right to Life board, urging the group to back Murkowski, a Republican.

The board Wednesday night was to hear more appeals for Murkowski, including one by phone from the leading anti-abortion U.S. House member, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.

"All the powers in the Republican Party, they're the ones doing all the pushing," said Alaska Right to Life president Ed Wassell. The national Right to Life organization has also urged the Alaska group to support Murkowski, he said.

Wassell said the lobbyists are hoping that Alaska Right to Life, the leading anti-abortion organization in the state, will endorse Murkowski, or at least remain neutral and not pick Jerry Sanders, a former Republican legislator and now an Alaskan Independence Party candidate for U.S. Senate.

"I have never seen a battle like this," said former state Sen. Jerry Ward, Sanders' campaign manager and long-term right-to-life supporter. "I've never seen a U.S. senator come and lobby the Right to Life board."

Murkowski and Democrat Tony Knowles are in a close race with three weeks until the election.

Knowles' position on abortion is that the federal government has no business getting between a woman and her doctor, which puts him solidly in the pro-choice camp.

Both anti-abortion and pro-choice advocates say Murkowski's position is harder to ascertain. She voted more pro-choice as a two-term state legislator but opposed abortions on overseas military bases and late-term abortions in the two years since her appointment to the Senate. She was instrumental in negotiating a statement on abortion that led to support by pro-choice Republican women for her father, Frank Murkowski, when he ran for governor in 2002.

"I do not support federal funding for abortion except in the case of the life of the mother (is at risk), incest, or the rape of the mother," Murkowski said Wednesday as she campaigned before church leaders in Kenai.

She said she supports "reasonable restrictions" on abortion.

Alaska Right to Life claims 50,000 members. Wassell said the board is struggling about its recommendation. Some board members believe it essential that Murkowski be elected even if she's not the ideal candidate for them because Knowles is pro-choice and could give the Senate to the Democrats.

"For others, it's Lisa, never," Wassell said.

Wassell said he remains undecided.

With the balance of power in the Senate in play, the group is getting unusual attention.

"We're popular once every four years," he said. "This one is bigger than normal."

Santorum, elected to the Senate in 1994, made his first trip to Alaska to campaign for Murkowski. He spoke to groups and religious leaders in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough on Tuesday and in Kenai on Wednesday. He addressed the Anchorage Baptist Temple at a service Wednesday night.

Wassell said Santorum's basic message was that Murkowski may not be the best candidate, but was worthy of support.

"He's very realistic," Wassell said. "He's one of the most effective people that Lisa could get to twist our arms. Same thing with (Rep. Chris) Smith. She's picked the outstanding pro-lifer in the U.S. Senate and the outstanding pro-lifer in the U.S. House."

Ward, Sanders' campaign manager on the Alaskan Independence Party ticket, said he hoped that Alaska Right to Life would stay true to its principles and not compromise by endorsing Murkowski but would back Sanders.

"I think they should remain pure. We're hanging tough for the unborn and stem-cell research," he said.