“You have to have some ability to pull off something like that. I just don’t have it.”

Leach also clarified the widely reported fact that in addition to publishing some of alleged Tiller murderer Scott Roeder’s works in his newsletter, Prayer & Action News, he also met with him. Leach said their last meeting was more than a decade ago.

“He seemed like a nice guy. Personable, good sense of humor,” Leach said.

Kim Lehman, president of Iowa Right to Life, attempted to distance her organization from activists like Leach by telling the Register “the pro-life community is opposed to murder. That’s the whole point.”

When the votes in Iowa were tallied, 70 percent of the 63 candidates endorsed by the Freedom Fund Political Action Committee, supported by Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, won their seats. Only four out of 10 state candidates endorsed by the Iowa Right to Life Coalition were elected.

In this election, just as in previous elections, those who sought to ban abortion used letter-writing campaigns to their advantage. The majority of letters to the editor dealing with reproductive health across the state were anti-abortion rights, for instance.

But despite the letters, voters appeared to turn away from socially divisive issues when making their decisions this year.

For example, Danny Carroll, a Republican candidate in Iowa House District 75 who lost Tuesday, actively campaigned on an anti-abortion message. His campaign sent two separate letters to voters that focused on an anti-abortion message, both from national anti-abortion groups like the National Pro-Life Alliance.

Dr. David Hartsuch, a Republican who lost his bid for U.S. House in the 1st District, used the Des Moines Register Soap Box at the Iowa State Fair to declare that “abortion is the leading controllable cause of breast cancer in America.” In addition to using the already debunked claim, Hartsuch ran on his anti-abortion record in Iowa Senate and even accused Arizona Sen. John McCain of barring him from an event because of Hartsuch’s strong social conservative stances.

If Hartsuch’s intention was to draw attention to the Republican presidential ticket’s lack of long-term support on social conservative issues, his efforts were likely thwarted by Iowa Right to Life’s leafleting of the Des Moines metro area with flyers that touted the McCain-Palin ticket.

Overall, it’s a touchy subject for Iowa Republicans, who ousted some moderates from top party offices during their summer convention in favor of others closely aligned with social conservative groups. Kim Lehman, executive director of Iowa Right to Life, and Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, now serve as the state’s two representatives on the Republican National Committee and on the Republican State Central Committee.

“If we’ve not bottomed out, if this isn’t bottomed out, this is what it looks like,” former Polk County Republican Chairman Ted Sporer told WHO-TV.

In the same piece Stewart Iverson, current Republican Party chairman, said that he sometimes thinks Republicans have “forgotten what we stand for.”

Perhaps the most telling statements in regard to the 2008 election and hot-button socially conservative issues, however, came from a letter written by Joy Corning, a former Iowa lieutenant governor and Iowa captain of the Republican Leadership Council.

“How can any group or person assume that a political candidate is pro-abortion?” Corning asked, referring to an Iowa Right to Life Coalition newsletter article that blasted 2nd District Congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks as a “great pretender.”

“Pro-life can and does mean pro-choice to great numbers of Republicans,” Corning wrote. “It means they want government to let individual citizens decide on matters best left to each person’s dignity, freedom, ability and responsibility. … We are defined by principles that have been our foundation since the time of Lincoln — limited government, strong defense, fiscal responsibility, self-determination and opportunity. We are not defined by a National Right to Life survey.”

Iowa Democrats will continue to control the House (at least 56-44), Senate (at least 31-19), and Gov. Chet Culver is a Democrat. Only two statewide offices in Iowa are controlled by Republicans — Secretary of Agriculture and State Auditor. Neither of those offices were on the 2008 ballot.

Steve Roberts

Steve Roberts, a man who was elected to represent Iowa Republicans for years on the Republican National Committee, believes that a state GOP official’s affiliation with an independent anti-abortion group that does not toe the party line presents a clear conflict of interest.

The conflict, which has left an already divided Iowa Republican Party even more splintered, stems from an article in an Iowa Right to Life Coalition newsletter that attacked Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the Republican nominee for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.

Kim Lehman, director of Iowa Right to Life, ousted Iowa Rep. Sandy Greiner during an extremely spirited Republican State Convention this summer to serve on the Republican State Central Committee as Iowa’s female Republican National Committee member.

“I think it’s a problem on several fronts,” said Roberts, who was also ousted this year from his role representing Iowa on the RNC by a prominent social conservative. “[Lehman] was asked on Iowa Public Television what she would do if there was a race that had a pro-choice Republican running against a pro-life Democrat. She gave the right answer at that time. She said that, as a national committeewoman, that she would support all of the Republicans who won the nomination.”

But Lehman’s organization published a newsletter article that strayed from that message.  The newsletter blasted Miller-Meeks by referring to her as a “great pretender” who is trying to pass herself off as being against abortion when she is not.

“She is certainly pro-life,” said Eric Woolson, communications director for the Miller-Meeks campaign. “She was on the Jan Mickelson program talking about it. Pure and simple, she is a pro-life candidate.”

Woolson added that average voters are more concerned about flood relief, protection of their retirement accounts and corruption in Washington.

“That’s what the voters of the district are focused on and that’s what Dr. Miller-Meeks is focused on,” he said.

In an earlier interview with Iowa Independent Miller-Meeks said that she condoned abortion only in cases of rape, incest or if the mother’s life is in danger.

“I think Kim’s statement was that she didn’t catch it or that it wasn’t her article,” Roberts said. “If you’re going to have a position in the party like she does, however, you have to make sure that your other activities don’t conflict — particularly when it comes to candidates. It may be that she will need to decide if she wants to be head of the pro-life movement in Iowa and not a party leader or vice versa.”

When current members of the Republican State Central Committee have phoned him to discuss the issue, Roberts said he has advised them that they first need to talk to Lehman and hear her side of the story. The second order of business, he said, depends on what Lehman has to say.

Republicans in Muscatine County, one of 12 counties that make up the 2nd Congressional District, didn’t wait. Reeling from both the recent newsletter article and a radio interview from the primary season in which Lehman referred to Miller-Meeks as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” the group penned a letter to the Republican State Central Committee and other interested parties that was signed by local party officials, Iowa Sen. Jim Hahn of Muscatine and Iowa Rep. Jeff Kaufmann of Wilton asking for Lehman to either apologize to Miller-Meeks or be removed from her official party roles.

“Addressing this issue has taken time away from campaigns in the 2nd District that we can not afford to lose,” the letter charged. “Kim Lehman should be representing ALL IOWA Republicans as National Committeewoman. Her personal stance as IRLC President is in direct conflict with her RPI role – she is actively working against our Republican candidates.”

Lehman has publicly stated that she had nothing to do with writing the specific article in question, but that she did see it before it was placed in the newsletter and distributed.

“I had a false humility thinking that people could understand that Kim Lehman is not Right to Life,” Lehman told O. Kay Henderson of Radio Iowa. “Iowa Right to Life is its separate bylaws. Its purpose is one issue. It’s focused on its issue and nowhere in the bylaws does it talk about elections or candidates or anything. … I realize people are connecting me as personally responsible because I head the organization. My responsibility to the organization is to make sure that the organization contains and does its bylaws. The integrity of the bylaws is what I’m responsible for to the board.”

Roberts believes that Lehman’s two positions present an inesecapable conflict of interests.

2nd Congressional District GOP hopeful Mariannette Miller-Meeks receives the Great Pretender Award in Iowa Right To Life newsletter.

“This is not a case of just staying quiet” on the 2nd district race, he said. “Iowa Right to Life came out and … well, they trashed Miller-Meeks. The standard I’ve always used is that the candidates who won the Republican primary — whether they are conservatives or liberals or moderates — deserved the support of party leadership including myself unless they were guilty of some crime, such as taking bribes or something like that. Short of that, you supported them on one hand and, on the other hand, you certainly didn’t trash them publicly.”

Roberts continued: “Suppose you have a Democratic candidate that is strongly pro-life and a Republican candidate that is strongly pro-choice. If you are a member of the Iowa Right to Life board of directors, you may be saying that you want staff to work to elect that pro-life person. So, it can work both ways and it may end up that [Lehman] is going to have to make a decision as to which group she wants to support. In effect, she’s trying to serve two masters, and it’s already running into a problem.”

Roberts, a relatively moderate Republican, was replaced as Iowa’s male representative to the RNC by Steve Scheffler of the Iowa Christian Alliance, another third-party issue advocacy group.

Roberts said this controversy is indicative of a wider, ongoing conflict within the Republican Party. “After the election, depending on how bad the Republican defeat is, I think you’re going to have further debate about the direction of the party in Iowa.”

“You’ve got people who say that if we didn’t have the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) or people that are not strong on social issues then Republicans would stand a better chance of winning. There are other people who are saying the party needs the Evangelicals, but that group is not the sole base of the party,” Roberts said. “You’ve got people who have been disaffected who have become independents and who are no longer enthusiastic.”

The Republican State Central Committee had intended to raise the controversy at their October meeting, but the meeting was canceled because of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s visit to Des Moines. GOP officials are expected to discuss the matter at their next meeting in December.

Canellos writes:

The sheer number of Republican leaders who've morphed from abortion-rights defenders to strict moral opponents invites both skepticism and credulity: There has to be some element of political expediency in all these shifts, but the leading lights of the GOP can't all be craven opportunists. To some degree, at least, they must be mirroring the journey of their constituents.

Kim Lehman, president of the Iowa Right to Life Committee, recently told Iowa Independent that social conservatives would accept candidates that drop their previous support for abortion rights. "We support people that turn to the right side. We don’t discourage that at all," she said. "People do become pro-life, and that’s our ultimate goal."

But is the switch real? And perhaps more importantly, does that matter?

In today's political climate, candidates are on a quest to attain that elusive trait known as "authenticity." So, changing positions on such a fundamental issue as abortion inevitably invites criticism of flip-flopping (Have you seen the kid in the dolphin costume calling himself Flip Romney?).

But several of the Republican presidential candidates seem intent on making that leap in hopes of appealing to, or at least appeasing, social conservatives. Besides Thompson and Romney, Rudy Giuliani — once a prominent supporter of abortion rights — is attempting to thread the needle on abortion. While in Council Bluffs on Wednesday, he told social conservatives that if he were elected, he would appoint "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court in the mold of justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

That's a required talking point for Republican hopefuls today — even for someone like Rudy Giuliani. Now, he won't be getting the endorsement of the Iowa Right to Life Committee anytime soon, Lehman said. But Romney, who only turned against abortion two years ago, has acceptable anti-abortion credentials, she told Iowa Independent.

Canellos seems to want to give these candidates the benefit of the doubt: "…the leading lights of the GOP can't all be craven opportunists."

Really? They're politicians — and Republicans, at that. But such opportunism doesn't seem to matter for many social conservatives today as long as it trends their way. For the Thompsons, Romneys and Giulianis of the world, that's good news.

Iowa social conservatives, who play a large role in determining the winner of the Iowa caucuses, said Romney’s ties to pornography could be a problem for his campaign. And his involvement with Marriott also brings his Mormon faith back into the spotlight, another potential obstacle to recruiting evangelical Christians.

Romney served on the Marriott Board from 1992 to 2001, during which time On Command Corp. provided for the hotels’ television and movie services, which included pay-per-view pornography, according to Glenn Johnson of the Associated Press.

President of the Iowa Right to Life Committee Kim Lehman, who had not heard about the growing controversy, said if true, it would have negative consequences for Romney’s campaign. “If he had the opportunity to protect families and didn’t take the opportunity, he’s going to be viewed as a hypocrite,” she said. “If it’s true if he could have, but chose not to … and to say you’re for families and for children, when you have a tremendous opportunity to take, these are all issues he’s going to be faced with.”

Lehman noted that she was formerly director of the Iowa chapter of Concerned Women of America, which counts pornography as one of CWA’s six “core issues.” “That was a really big issue because it destroys families,” she said.

Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance also called pornography “a major issue,” though he said he wasn’t “familiar with the circumstances” surrounding Romney.

The story broke in June, though it did not seem to breach the national consciousness until recently. David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network reported last week that the issue would be a problem for some social conservatives. “My attitude toward board members is that they are fully responsible," John Harmer, President of the anti-pornography group The Lighted Candle Society, told Brody.

CitizenLink, which is affiliated with the influential social conservative group, Focus on the Family, then quoted Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values saying, “The fact that Marriott hotel chain was dealing in the worst kind of hard core pornographic material and Mr. Romney was sitting on the board at the time is extremely disturbing.”

After Johnson’s coverage in the Associated Press, the issue became nationally known.

An interesting subplot also exists amidst this mini-controversy as it inevitably brings up Romney’s Mormon faith, which some evangelicals do not consider to be Christian. That’s because founder, J. Willard Marriott was also a Mormon, and in fact, was close to Romney’s father, presidential candidate and former Michigan Gov. George Romney. The elder Romney even named his son after Marriott (Mitt’s given first name is Willard). Marriott also endowed the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University.

The Deseret Morning News, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recently criticized Romney and Marriott in an editorial. And on one financial message board discussing Marriott stock, someone named ldsmachoman wrote, “It is interesting that you often find Book of Mormons in Marriott Hotels. A lot of their hotels also offer adult–hard core movies. Is that the Mormon way of doing business. Just curious. … Mitt Romney for president and legalize polygamy now.”

Evangelical Christians, many already nervous about Romney’s faith, may now have even more reason to be wary of Romney’s candidacy.

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that Thompson was hired by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association in 1991:

His task was to urge the administration of President George H. W. Bush to withdraw or relax a rule that barred abortion counseling at clinics that received federal money, according to the records and to people who worked on the matter.

Thompson’s campaign has denied that Thompson ever lobbied for the abortion rights group.

Lehman said she was not familiar with the potential controversy and so declined to comment on the specific situation but said if true, it could pose a problem for Thompson. “I think it’s always a problem if they say they are pro-life if they work against life. That’s hypocritical,” she said. “If he was working against life, if that is the case, it would naturally cause us concern. Our goal is to save lives, not to pretend to save lives. If what you’re saying is accurate, then of course that would be a problem.”

Lehman said Iowans who oppose abortion, including members of her organization, will play a large role in next year’s Iowa Caucuses. “Our mission in the caucuses is to help people put a pro-life plank onto the platform and to mobilize pro-life people to the caucuses,” she said.

Lehman said the Iowa Right to Life Committee will not endorse a candidate in the race for the Republican nomination because there are multiple anti-abortion candidates. The organization does, however, oppose former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s candidacy because of his support for abortion rights.

Candidates that drop previous abortion-rights views, such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, are able to receive support, she said. “It only becomes a problem if [Romney] ends up not following through on his commitment. We support people that turn to the right side. We don’t discourage that at all. … People do become pro-life and that’s our ultimate goal.”

Lehman had previously endorsed Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback for president, and though she had made personal endorsements in the past, the committee recently told her not to support him publicly, she said.