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		ROBERTSON REDUX | PAGE 1, 2, - - - - - - - - - - This infighting between Bauer and Robertson stems partially from the turf and ego battles that mark most political tiffs. But there have also been differences over the impeachment issue. Robertson surprised and outraged many conservatives when, weeks before the close of the Senate impeachment trial, he declared that Clinton had won, the trial should end and conservatives should cut their losses. (He later said his comments reflected "political analysis," not his own views.) This pragmatic approach did not sit well with many of the true believers who accused Robertson of capitulating. Indeed, all of the candidates at the Christian Coalition's New Hampshire forum roused the crowd with calls for Clinton's ouster. Playing off House manager Henry Hyde's declaration that impeachment wasn't over "until the fat lady sings," radio talk show host Alan Keyes went to work. "I mean no insult to the Christian Coalition, [but] it's time that we remember before we are even tempted to throw in the towel, that we are the fat lady, and we better start singing!" Despite the thunderous applause, Keyes was playing to a crowd that is clearly not as powerful as it was earlier in the decade. Christian Coalition meetings used to command the appearance of George Bush, Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich in the glory days of the early 1990s, and Republican political hopefuls of all stripes came to pay their respects to the coalition rank and file. At this latest forum, however, the only presidential candidates to make the trek were Bauer, Keyes and publisher Steve Forbes. Former Vice President Dan Quayle sent a video greeting, while a handful of other well-known presumptive candidates took a pass altogether. The decline in the coalition's power stems from a series of financial and legal problems that ultimately led to the 1997 leadership change within the organization. Reed and Robertson were replaced by former Rep. Randy Tate and Don Hodel, who served as energy secretary under Ronald Reagan. The organization was faced with sagging revenues, declining membership, a pending IRS investigation and a lawsuit by the Federal Election Commission alleging illegal campaign contributions to Republican politicians. But like the rest of the Republican Party, impeachment remains the most sensitive open wound for the right wing, and Robertson's comments seem to have only worsened the Christian Coalition's problems. As part of the impeachment fallout, there is an increasing malaise evident among top lieutenants in the right wing's culture war, the people who helped bring the Christian movement to political prominence over the last decade. Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation, a once-powerful right-wing lobbying group, recently posted a dejected "Dear Friend" letter on the group's Web site. Weyrich, who coined the phrase "moral majority" and helped elevate Rev. Jerry Falwell to national prominence, suggested that "there is no moral majority" among the American people. He blamed American culture, which he dubbed "an ever-wider sewer" and bemoaned America as "a state totally dominated by an alien ideology, an ideology bitterly hostile to Western culture." Given this "cultural collapse of historic proportions," Weyrich suggested the presidential prospects for conservatives are dim. Instead, Weyrich called for a self-imposed Christian cultural "quarantine," to keep from becoming "infected" by a degenerate American society. The challenge for power brokers within the Christian right will be to stop the exodus of conservatives like Weyrich from the political front lines, while maintaining their clout within the Republican Party at large. Whether these are simply growing pains of a movement in transition or the beginning of a departure of Christian conservatives from the political process -- heralding a much more fundamental political shift within the GOP -- remains to be seen. If nothing else, the current rift threatens the effective strategy employed by the Christian right throughout the 1990s -- to work as a small, untied voting bloc to help conservatives in Republican primaries. The current tensions and disarray among them suggests a lively presidential primary season in which the struggle for leadership of the conservative movement, as well as the Republican Party, will be at stake. SALON | Feb. 24, 1999 Frederick Clarkson has reported on the religious right for 15 years. He is the author of "Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy" (Common Courage Press, 1997).