Candidates try to woo social conservatives

Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa

Six Republican presidential candidates dived deep into how their religious faith influences their public life during a free-flowing forum before a large, influential audience of social conservatives in early- voting Iowa on Saturday.

At an event sponsored by an Iowa Christian group, the candidates tried at times to gain a political edge with potent Iowa conservatives. But some of the discussion turned uncharacteristically personal, with the would-be presidents tearfully revealing formative chapters that shaped their faith.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose recent rise has renewed scrutiny of his two divorces, admitted taking the advice of a recovering alcoholic to soothe the demons he had treated for years with his own national ambition.

“I wasn’t drinking, but I had precisely the symptoms of someone who was collapsing under this weight,” Gingrich said. “And I found myself, this emerging national figure ... trying to understand where I had failed, why I was empty and why I had to turn to God.”

Businessman Herman Cain, accused of sexually harassing four subordinates more than a decade ago, didn’t address the accusations that he has denied vigorously. But he acknowledged not being home enough during his career’s meteoric rise to the top of a national restaurant chain, and he credited his marriage with helping him after being diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

“Before my wife and I were about to head to the care, I said, ‘I can do this,”’ Cain recalled. “She said, ‘We can do this.’”

The event occurred while many evangelical conservatives, a powerful force in Iowa’s caucuses, still look for a more conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor has not courted this segment of the voting bloc aggressively in his second bid for the GOP nomination.

Notably absent was Romney, a leader in most national and Iowa polls this year but who has not campaigned vigorously for the social-conservative vote.

Also missing was former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who is focusing his early-state campaign on New Hampshire, where his moderate positions on gay rights are not as glaring a liability.