Bush plans to address marriage in Ohio visit
The president will promote funding marriage support groups and counseling.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's push for strong marriages among the poor sends a safe message that sits well with the conservatives he needs on Election Day, Ohio political analysts say.
Bush, in a planned official visit today to Cincinnati, will keep his distance from the more volatile social issues he is promoting, such as a constitutional ban on gay marriages, said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute for Applied Politics at the University of Akron.
"You likely won't have people picketing the president over this proposal," Green said Friday. "With something like the [gay] marriage initiative, the war in Iraq or late-term abortion, he riles up people on the other side."
The subject also offers the president a chance to steer the focus of his re-election campaign away from the economy and national security and shine light on a "compassionate conservative" agenda designed to appeal to undecided voters. That agenda includes issues such as federal money for faith-based community services and the Healthy Marriage Initiative.
Promoting marriage
Bush first proposed the initiative two years ago, and some pilot programs have been funded. A full-scale, $240 million, five-year plan remains stalled in the Senate as part of a welfare reauthorization bill.
Under the president's proposal, states, community groups and faith-based organizations would be able to compete for welfare money to provide affordable marriage education services. The programs would teach engaged or married couples how to listen, communicate, solve problems and respect each other.
"It gives him a chance to talk about family and values and compassionate conservatism," Herb Asher, an Ohio State University political science professor, said of the trip. "That really gets to his base. It will play wonderfully in Cincinnati."
Target demographics
The Cincinnati area is a Republican stronghold. Bush also will attend a fund-raiser in suburban Indian Hill for the Republican National Committee. The suburb is in the 45243 ZIP code, the second-most generous in the country to the Bush campaign last year.
The marriage issue should be popular locally given the area's strong German-Catholic community, said Gene Beaupre, a political analyst at Cincinnati's Xavier University.
"The conservative element in Cincinnati is significantly Catholic and marriage is a central sacrament," Beaupre said.
Bush is traveling a safe road but should focus on issues such as jobs, which would go further in stabilizing low-income families, said Jennifer Palmieri, spokeswoman for Democrat John Kerry's Ohio campaign.
"Senator Kerry has forwarded many initiatives to help encourage marriages to stay together," Palmieri said. "This effort is really a Band-Aid ... The biggest threat to families in Ohio is the lack of economic stability."
Supporters say the programs would be voluntary and could help solve persistent problems linked to children raised in poor, single-parent homes.
"If we don't do something about it, we will see more and more kids not doing well in school, we will see more and more crime, we will see more and more babies who don't have fathers ... and it will directly affect our tax dollars," said Kelly Simpson, the founder of the Families are Relationships Foundation.
Other arguments
Opponents say the government has no business intervening in marriage, which should be private. Some contend the programs could pressure women into abusive marriages and convey that they should find a husband rather than seek self-sufficiency.
Lisalyn R. Jacobs, vice president for government relations at Legal Momentum, formerly called the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, said promoting marriage among welfare recipients is like putting the cart before the horse.
"We know a fair amount of what works to move people from welfare to self-sufficiency: education, training and child care," Jacobs said. "Part of our concern with the administration is the notion that they are going to get people to focus on marriage before helping them to become more economically independent."
Bush planned to meet with program participants at the Talbert House, which provides drug treatment and life skills training at 25 sites in the Cincinnati area.