(4 of 8)
When Ashcroft arrived in the Senate in 1995, he suffered from a condition common to Governors who make their way to the Capitol. "He had a difficult time being a legislator," says a Republican Senate source. As Governor, Ashcroft could make policy by signing an Executive Order, casting his veto or using his bully pulpit. But to make policy in the Senate, he had to cajole and flatter fellow Senators--skills Ashcroft had never mastered. He could also be hard to pin down ideologically: he fought for flex time for workers and cutting regressive payroll taxes. Ashcroft's greatest liability, says a Republican warrior working on his defense, "is the rigidity. There are issues on which there is no other hand. That is what may catch some people up short."
Ashcroft's signature legislative victory came during the 1996 welfare-reform effort, when he crafted the charitable-choice provision, which made it easier for religious groups to receive government money to provide social services like drug-treatment and job-training programs. Ashcroft defenders point to charitable choice as evidence of his ability to weave his private religious convictions into creative public policy. "You don't want government to turn religious groups into government agencies," says Joe Loconte, a specialist in church-state relations at the Heritage Foundation. "Figuring out how to get public money to religious groups--that was the lawyer part; doing it in a way that respects the integrity and spiritual mission of the groups--that was the Christian part."
Ashcroft spent much of 1998 pondering a run for the G.O.P. presidential nomination but dropped out before the year was over. Asked afterward if he was glad not to have people "poking and prodding" him to campaign everywhere, Ashcroft said, "The only person poking and prodding me, was me."
The strength of Ashcroft's personal beliefs is what scares so many people and thrills so many others. That issue was revived last week as the newscasts replayed his remarks at Bob Jones University, an ode to a country that has "no king but Jesus," which sent a shudder through the ranks of First Amendment watchdogs. Being Attorney General is not just about enforcing the law, it is also about changing it, deciding which laws to challenge, how aggressively to prosecute and where to throw your best lawyers. Women's groups question his willingness to enforce laws protecting access to abortion clinics; consumer groups wonder how aggressive he will be on antitrust matters. When religious as well as legal principles are at stake, which ones prevail? In a nationally known right-to-die case, Pete Busalacchi battled Ashcroft for years over the right of a parent to end the life of a comatose child with no hope of recovery. The long fight left Busalacchi bitter. "It was a matter of one person in a high position inflicting his religious beliefs onto a family," Busalacchi told TIME. "Is John Ashcroft's religion better than mine?"