COMPASSION IS BACK

By Richard Stengel

IT'S A WORD BELOVED BY liberals and traditionally shunned by conservatives. It's cited in neither the Constitution nor the Contract with America. But these days the notion of compassion is at the heart of both the national political debate and the presidential campaign. Concerned that voters see them as heartless technocrats, more and more Republicans want to make sure that the phrase compassionate conservative is not an oxymoron. The derivation of compassion means "to suffer with," and some conservatives, like William Bennett and Arianna Huffington, are worried that come the election next fall, they might suffer for not having shown enough of it.

This prudence is well founded. During the interminable budget brouhaha, Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail have often come across as soulless CPAS at an actuarial seminar, talking of CBO figures versus OMB numbers, more concerned with monetary matters than morality. "The budget battle," says conservative guru Bill Kristol, "played into the two great Republican vulnerabilities: that we are the party of the rich and the meanspirited." While Republicans donned their green eyeshades, the Great Empathizer in the White House cornered the compassion market. The President's constant refrain that "we should balance the budget in a way that reflects our values" appealed to an American public that likes to think of itself as compassionate. "There is a tonal change," admits Alex Castellanos, media adviser to Phil Gramm. "You've just seen Republicans touch the hot stove of insensitivity on the budget."

Out on the campaign trail, the Republican candidates are competing with one another to reveal a little heart. In his response to the State of the Union speech, Bob Dole spoke not only about tucking children into bed but also of how "our battles will not be about numbers [but] about the character of our nation." Last week in the town of Clinton, Iowa, Dole beseeched a crowd not to dismiss him and his fellow Republicans as being cold-blooded about Medicare: "We have feelings, and we care about people," he said. Last week Lamar Alexander visited a teen drug-treatment center in Hampton, New Hampshire, and talked poignantly about the need for neighborhood charity. A campaign ad for Senator Dick Lugar touts the fact that he fought against turning the federal school-lunch program into block grants. Even Gramm has modulated his granite-hearted talk about tossing people off the welfare wagon; now he says we need to feel sympathy for those riding in the cart as well for those pulling it.

Conservatives are convinced that they must go beyond their critique of the compulsory compassion of the Great Society and offer some personal caring of their own. Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who market-tested the G.O.P.'s Contract with America, has been polling on values and telling any Republican who will listen that the three essential components of conservative compassion are spirituality, community and family.

Some on Capitol Hill are trying to put these ideas into action. Missouri Republican Senator John Ashcroft proposed a bill to let religion-promoting groups use federal or state funds for social services to the poor. Republican Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, along with Bill Bennett, has started the Project for American Renewal, which includes proposals for a score of bills focusing resources on families, community organizations and private charities. Among these are bills proposing a tax credit for adoptions, the reserving of 15% of public housing for intact families, and $1 million grants for school districts to operate same-gender schools. The centerpiece of Coats' proposal is a $500-per-person tax credit for donations to charitable organizations that fight poverty. "A nation that has lost its compassion has lost a portion of its soul," Coats has said. "A presidential candidate who can speak on these issues in a compelling, morally serious way will have a powerful tool in the 1996 election."

To that end, Coats has taken Dole aside and offered him some tender-hearted advice: Reminisce about the old days in Russell, Kansas. Talk about compassionate community as an alternative to centralized bureaucracy. Show a little Dole soul. The Senator seems to be listening. At the last Republican debate in Des Moines, Iowa, Dole did his version of "I feel your pain," saying he understood people on welfare because his own grandparents had been among them.

At the White House, political aides to the President are not sweating about who will win the compassion competition. ("Compassion is us," could be the White House's slogan.) They and other Democrats see conservative compassion as a kind of Republican confidence trick, allowing them to grind the faces of the poor while wearing a self-righteous smile. But the idea of compassion is genuine and will not melt away. Luntz avows that voters "want you to feel for them." So, advice to all Republican candidates from a consultant in compassion: "Think needy, not greedy."