He seemed to be echoing the record of those Republican governors who have embraced pragmatism, ideological flexibility and impatience with litmus-test social issues.

He or she will also have to confront demands for promises on litmus-test issues like abortion.

Although abortion is no longer the litmus-test issue it once was, there are still questions about the subject.

As a result, that is no longer a litmus-test issue among many voters.

These are the issues that move the souls of party loyalists, what politicians and their Washington consultants call litmus-test issues.

"We consider this a litmus-test issue," said James Stacy, a spokesman for the medical association.

"But there is a constituency for whom it is a litmus-test issue, and more of them are for Bush."

It is not that the war is a litmus-test issue.

But in your appointments for the Supreme Court, will you use abortion as a litmus-test issue?

Bill Bennett says Republican voters are more interested in character and leadership than in a perfect score on the litmus-test issues.