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A Call to 'Win This Culture War'
At a closed, invitation-only Bush campaign rally for Christian conservatives yesterday, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas called for a broad social conservative agenda notably different from the televised presentations at the Republican convention, including adopting requirements that pregnant women considering abortions be offered anesthetics for their fetuses and loosening requirements on the separation of church and state.

"We must win this culture war," Senator Brownback urged a crowd of several hundred in a packed ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, reprising a theme of a speech by Patrick J. Buchanan from the podium of the 1992 Republican convention that many political experts say alienated moderate voters in that election.

Called "the Family, Faith and Freedom Rally" in e-mail invitations sent to Christian conservatives in New York for the convention, the event was organized by the Bush-Cheney campaign "to celebrate America and President George W. Bush," according to a copy of the invitation. The e-mail called Mr. Bush "a conservative leader who shares our values, who takes a strong stand for his faith."

Ralph Reed, a senior campaign adviser and liaison to conservative Christians, also addressed the crowd. Several campaign staff members, including the deputy political director, Christian Myers, attended, along with Timothy Goeglein, the White House liaison to Christian groups. One invited participant said the rally, which was closed to the news media, was the main event sponsored by the campaign for social conservatives attending the convention....

...Mr. Reed also addressed the crowd, recalling Mr. Bush's response to a question about his favorite philosopher during the 2000 Republican primary. "The President said, 'Jesus Christ,' " Mr. Reed recalled. And amid rousing applause, he repeated Mr. Bush's distinctively evangelical follow-up: "The president said, as only he can say, 'If I have to explain it to you, then you don't understand it.' "...

...Other Christian conservatives at the convention were already doing their part. At a hotel near the convention, the independent film production company, Grizzly Adams Productions, was screening a film dedicated to reaffirming Mr. Bush's credentials as a sincere evangelical Christian and to criticizing the separation of church and state.

A recurring theme of the film is that Mr. Bush's opponents dislike him mainly because of his forthright faith. "The notion that our leaders should have God in their life has suddenly become threatening," a narrator says.

"Will the faith of George Bush be sufficient to keep us in God's hands today?" the film concludes, "Perhaps if we all join our faith to his."