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Ch 10: Pat Who?
Televangelism: Power and Politics on God`s Frontier |  |
Ch 10: Pat Who?
We have
enough votes to run the country.... And when the people say
"we've had enough," we are going to take over the
country.
--M. G. "Pat" Robertson, President,
Christian Broadcasting Network
Pat Who?" exclaimed Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul G. Kirk, Jr., upon receipt of a staffbriefing on Pat Robertson, founder and president of the Christian Broadcasting Network and host of its flagship program, "The 700 Club."
"I couldn't believe that this relatively unknown man could be a major, if not leading, candidate for president," wrote Kirk in a sevenpage fund- raising letter to fellow Democrats in November of 1985. But after reviewing reports from his staff, Kirk ominously concluded, "Pat Robertson has the most powerful political organization in America." [1]
Deliberate hyperbole calculated to raise money to replenish Democratic coffers? Probably. But that didn't matter to the writers of the news. Religion and politics, mixed with a hint of impending danger from an army of religious zealots and a pinch of cynicism on the side, makes for good copy.
Stories about the possibility that Pat Robertson might run for president had already begun to appear as early as March 1985, when the Saturday Evening Post, a conservative, family-oriented magazine, published a cover story. Some months later, Richard Viguerie's Conservative Digest also produced a cover story. One of the sidebars was
a collection of several dozen quotes from conservative luminaries. The strongest came from Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Research and Educational Foundation and the Iron Man of the New Right:
No doubt it was this kind of enthusiasm on the part of New Right operatives that caught the attention of Paul Kirk's staff. Editors took the bait of Kirk's fund-raising letter and sent reporters out to learn more about Pat Who. But the tone of much of their coverage suggests that most reporters merely assumed Kirk's words were calculated to squeeze the pocketbooks of faithful Democrats. In the early flurry of stories about Pat Robertson, no one seemed to have checked in at Democratic headquarters to see whether Kirk's staff knew something that other people did not know.
If the Kirk letter was intended to help the Democrats at Robertson's expense, it backfired badly, garnering the kind of attention he needed to catapult into national visibility. The words and pictures began to flow. And Robertson knew how to work this coverage to his fullest advantage. He quickly graduated from the covers of Conservative Digest and the Saturday Evening Post to cover and feature stories in high-circulation weeklies such as Time, TV Guide, and People. National talk-show appearances followed, including "Face the Nation," "Meet the Press," and (of course) "The Phil Donahue Show."
The Kirk letter also brought Robertson lots of attention from Republicans who had never heard of Pat Who either. Republicans didn't need much coaxing to invite him to address their state and national committee meetings. And, everywhere he spoke, Robertson inserted the Kirk letter in the press packets distributed to audiences. Penciling in rebuttals to information he felt to be misleading or inaccurate, Robertson was able to plant in the minds of Republicans the idea that he might indeed be a formidable candidate.
In mid-March of 1986, Robertson was still getting good mileage out of the Kirk letter. Turning his guns on Kirk and accusing him of religious bigotry, Robertson upstaged six other presidential hopefuls
who appeared with him before a national gathering of GOP party leaders in Nashville's Opryland Hotel.
But Robertson's time for attention as a serious political candidate, at least as far as the mass media were concerned, had not yet arrived. Editors know a good story when they see one, but they also know the difference between a serious story and a human- interest or novelty story. In early 1986 the Robertson candidacy was certainly viewed as the latter. No editor in the country believed that Pat Robertson could mount a serious campaign for the Republican party's nomination for the presidency.
Nor would any editor want to be the last to cover a story that had already peaked. The press usually does have a very keen sense of how long a story will play, but in the case of Robertson, they badly miscalculated. Before the Robertson presidential story gathered a full head of steam, editors concluded that they had gotten about all they were going to get out of this one. It was time again for a requiem on the television-preachers- and-politics story.
This premature conclusion was precipitated in the early spring when both Robertson and Falwell made business decisions that were interpreted as evidence of weakness. On the last day of March, the Associated Press reported that Jerry Falwell was laying off 225 employees, canceling his toll-free line, and increasing fees and cutting scholarships at Liberty University. Three days later, another wire story with a Virginia Beach dateline reported that Pat Robertson was selling three television stations, dropping his toll-free number, and laying off forty one employees.
Like a school of fish, editors all over America killed their investigative pieces on the evangelical presidential hopeful and sent reporters out to find corroborating evidence that the mixing of religion and politics had hit the superstars of televangelism in the pocketbook to the point of putting them on the ropes.
There was scarcely a shred of evidence to support this interpretation of the cutbacks. Television ministries have a long history of laying off people temporarily as a means of dealing with seasonal cash- How problems. CBN's decision to sell three television stations was part of a long-range business decision to redirect its resources toward developing cable broadcasting. Falwell's decision to raise tuition and fees at Liberty University was also part of a long-range plan to move the
school toward self- sufficiency. For both ministries, the decision to cut toll- free lines was a hard-nosed business decision and not an act of financial desperation. (The media never reported that CBN later found other means to cut costs and never discontinued their toll-free numbers.) And so it went with the other cost-saving measures the two television ministries initiated. These decisions were evidence of prudent management, but, almost uniformly, the press approached this story with a pessimistic angle and a set of presuppositions. The secular press had been expecting the collapse of the televangelists' broadcasting empires for years. The Falwell and CBN news releases seemed to provide the evidence they had anticipated. Althollgh the facts did not point to the demise either of the broadcasting empires or of Robertson's shot at big-time politics, stories of the collapse of the two TV ministries were still appearing in mid-May as the first acid test of Robertson's political acumen approached.
The scene was the state of Michigan; the date was May 27, 1986, the deadline for filing to be a county precinct delegate, the first step in a long, drawn-out process for selecting delegates to the 1988 GOP presidential nominating convention. The delegate selection process in Michigan is easily the most complex and attenuated of any state. Furthermore, at no point along the way can delegates be bound to a candidate. Most Republican hopefuls decided to bypass the early phases of the Michigan process in the hope that they would be able to round up a few delegates closer to the date of the convention.
Normally, the filing deadline for this first phase would scarcely draw local news coverage, much less national and even international attention. But, as it turned out, the Michigan primary process took on tremendous significance in 1986. There were three reasons why this was so.
First, the Michigan GOP, hoping to draw attention to itself, began the delegate selection process before anyone else. Even though it was rather like putting up Christmas decorations in June, there was simply no way the press could ignore presidential politics-even though the election was two and a half years away.
Second, George Bush was anxious to establish himself as the heirapparent to Ronald Reagan. Over the years, the vice president under a retiring president has rarely been denied the nomination. In fact, the last such time was in 1924, when Herbert Hoover outdistanced
Calvin Coolidge's vice president, Charles G. Dawes, for the nomination. Even so, Bush wanted to get a head start. Michigan was the place where the long march began. And Bush, keenly aware that this was the one state where he beat Ronald Reagan in the 1980 primaries, was keyed up and ready. He knew there would be obstacles along the way and wanted to face them head-on. For example, a lot of conservatives have always seen Bush's conservatism as mere expediency and have been unwilling to support him. Bush designed a strategy to deal with that sentiment early and decisively. He also believed that Reagan's good friend Senator Paul Laxalt might decide to become a candidate and, thus, compete with the vice president for the president's endorsement.
Bush recognized that the process was set up to favor a small cadre of party regulars, a situation ideally suited for a sitting vice president to round up the support of most of the delegates. It looked like an opportunity to blitz a big state with a lot of delegates and simultaneously create the image of Bush as an unbeatable front-runner. In a word, the Michigan delegate selection process was important because Vice President George Bush chose to make Michigan a test of his strength. But Bush's enthusiasm to get out in front early may have been the beginning of his undoing.
A funny thing happened on the way to Bush's Michigan blitzkrieg. A couple of unlikely challengers showed up for the fight. The first was Jack Kemp, the former NFL quarterback and conservative congressman from New York. The other was a TV preacher from Virginia named Pat Robertson.
The state party organization and George Bush were two of the factors infusing the Michigan contest with special significance. The third was Pat Rohertson. He calculated that his grass-roots strength would enable him to walk away with at least a handful of delegates. And in so doing, he would garner some national attention for his candidacy.
Initially, no one gave the television preacher even a prayer of challenging George Bush or of running well against Kemp. Kemp had long been a darling of conservatives, and many thought he had the best chance of beating out Bush for the nomination.
The day after the May deadline for filing, the Bush and the Robertson organizations each claimed to have registered about 4,500 delegate candidates, while Kemp forces were claiming 3,400. That adds
up to 12,400 delegates, or about 38 percent more than the state GOP party claimed were registered. And this, of course, does not allow for the fact that some unknown percentage of delegate candidates were truly "uncommitted." In reality, since delegates were not required to reveal who they intended to support, it was impossible to determine how many delegates each presidential hopeful had lined up.
In the early stages of presidential primaries, winners and losers are determined not by how much strength the candidates have mustered but, rather, by the interpretation of their performance by the media's political pundits. Since analysts didn't expect Robertson to make any kind of showing, the fact that he might have signed up nearly as many delegates as Bush, and more than Kemp, was interpreted as a stunning victory. There were even rumors that Robertson had beaten Bush but was sandbagging his strength.
Whatever the truth, the combination of Bush's insistence on making Michigan a test and Robertson's unexpected strength drew attention to the primary on August 5. The minister's potential presidential candidacy was the hot item as media coverage soared.
August 5 came and went without clarifying the strength of the candidates in the race for delegates. As with the precinct contest in May, there was no statewide tabulation of who was selected to proceed to the congressional district caucuses. Hence, there would be no official results when the polls closed-only the claims of the candidates.
Several forces moved in to fill the information void. And if ever there was an example of Gresham's Law (bad currency driving out good currency), it certainly was operative in Michigan on that primary Tuesday. First, the Bush operatives rushed in with proclamations of a landslide victory. "[T]he vice president's support is a mile wide and a mile deep," announced the state chairman of Bush's Fund for America's Future. Later the Bush staff revised its estimates downward from a clear majority to a plurality. But never mind.
Second, the news media, hungry for information but unable to conduct a standard exit poll (i.e., "Who did you vote for?") because the delegates were not formally tied to a candidate, elected to conduct candidate-preference polls.
The polls conducted by NBC/Wall Street Journal and the Detroit Free Press lent credibility to the Bush camp's claim of victory. And no one challenged these polls' appropriateness for gauging candidate
strength. So the reporters filed their stories and headed home, believing that Bush had beaten back the challenge of the evangelicals. A sampling of the national coverage of the primary showed nearconsensus that Bush had won.
But not everyone was certain. New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, understanding the complexity of the process, wrote:
If Bush won a majority of the delegates in Michigan (and it eventually became clear that he did not), it was immediately evident that he failed to win a decisive victory. In fact, in failing to gain the big victory he wanted, Bush actually lost. He lost the opportunity to gain the decisive edge and establish an early bandwagon. He also lost face. He intended to assert his image as a strong front-runner capable of "kicking a little ass" if anyone got in his way. Michigan revealed to all would-be challengers that George Bush was vulnerable. Nothing could alter the inescapable reality that by failing to win decisively, George Bush lost big.
Meanwhile, Pat Robertson won big, regardless of how many Michigan delegates would eventually support him. Robertson captured an edge in the pursuit of delegates, gained some valuable campaign experience, and attracted more media attention than even his own forces might have imagined.
Michigan didn't transform Robertson into a front-runner. In fact, the national media, having done a flurry of "novelty candidate" stories, seemed reluctant to give him much attention for many months. Not so in Michigan, as the delegate-selection process rolled slowly toward the sending of seventy-seven delegates to New Orleans to the 1988 Republican nominating convention.
The first major evidence of Robertson's strength came at a statewide
Republican convention in Lansing, Michigan, on February 20 and 21, 1987. When the convention was over, Robertson loyalists had claimed sixty-three of 101 seats on the Republican State Committee. The Washington Post gave only passing mention to this development; the New York Times downplayed it, leading with acknowledgment from Bush strategists that they had earlier overestimated their candidate's strength. Michigan's major newspapers were more candid, and Sunday morning editions bannered the Robertson triumph. Hugh McDiarmid, chief political writer for the Detroit Free Press, put it on the line in his column:
And two months later, after another GOP State Committee meeting produced a brouhaha between the Robertson newcomers and the Old Guard loyal to Bush, McDiarmid wrote that there was no longer any doubt about the strength of the Robertson forces. Looking ahead to the January 1988 selection of delegates, McDiarmid wrote:
And George Weeks, political writer for the Detroit News, wrote, "The ruling Robertson- Kemp coalition socked it to the Bush camp Friday night in a stunning show of who's running the Michigan GOP." [6] If the national press tended to ignore these developments, the Michigan media made much of the Robertson-Kemp coalition. But as the Robertson camp counted, it was firmly in control even without the Kemp alliance. Robertson's staff members had every reason to play ball with the Kemp forces; in fact, Robertson early mentioned Kemp as a vice-presidential running mate. But it was clear that they intended to play hard ball from a position of strength.
Pat Robertson's early successes received some help from George Bush whose own eagerness to get out in front of the rest of the pack contributed to his undoing. But, in truth, George Bush was outsmarted, outmaneuvered, and overpowered in Michigan by Preacher Pat. Beating a sitting vice president on his first outing was no small accomplishment even if the political pundits seemed not to take notice.
There may still be a lot of questions about Pat Robertson come GOP National Convention time. But one thing is certain: Robertson's candidacy was not a lark. He wants to be president. And, like it or not- and clearly a lot of Americans don't like it-the man has to be taken seriously. Pat Robertson's presence in the GOP presidential sweepstakes is the most important factor in shaping the 1988 campaign.
So . . . who is this man Pat Robertson?
The stereotype of Preacher Pat healing hemorrhoids and praying away hurricanes is part of the cultural context in which we know him. It is a stereotype that says something very important about who we are--a modern secular culture profoundly skeptical of people who take their religion seriously and practice their faith in ways unfamiliar to those in the antiseptic pews of mainline Protestantism.
As long as we see Robertson on these terms, we will not know him as he sees himself and as he is seen by millions of Americans who are very excited about his candidacy.
Robertson is a man who believes that he and we have a date with destiny.
Marion G. "Pat" Robertson is the son of the late U.S. Senator A. Willis Robertson and the late Gladys Churchill Robertson. He is a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia, which boasted a signer of the Declaration of Independence and two U.S. presidents. He is also a descendant of John Churchill, second Duke of Marlborough and ancestor of Winston Churchill. Pat Robertson is a true American blue blood. And he has the know-how to utilize all the advantages that accrue thereto.
Graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, Robertson studied briefly at the University of London before he earned a J.D. at Yale Law School in 1955. Before deciding to study for the ministry, Robertson participated in a management training program with the W. R. Grace Company, and he was a partner in an electronic components business in New York.
After graduating from New York Theological Seminary, and serving briefly as a pastor of an inner-city church in Brooklyn, Robertson purchased a dilapidated television station and founded the Christian Broadcasting Network with a mere $70 initial capital. In 1985, the combined revenues of the Christian Broadcasting Network and its affiliated broadcasting enterprises were estimated at $230 million.
Until September 1986, Robertson was the host of "The 700 Club," CBN's flagship program. Shortly before he gave up this post to devote more time to his presidential quest, the A. C. Nielsen Company reported a weekly audience of 12 million for the program-29 million cumulative viewers over the course of a month. [7]
Even though Robertson has never held elective office, he is not exactly a political novice. He grew up on Capitol Hill, where his father served for thirty-four years, climaxing his career as chairman of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee. And, while a law student, Pat was a staff investigator for the Senate Appropriations Committee. Pat Robertson knows how things work in Washington.
A lot of people feel that Pat Robertson's lack of elective-office experience is a big detriment to his candidacy for the highest office in the land. Being a senator or a congressman is considered an important prerequisite for the presidency because it provides an opportunity to learn about foreign affairs, especially if the opportunities arise for foreign junkets.
Pat Robertson's broadcasting empire does business in forty-six nations. He has traveled in at least forty-four countries, including approximately fifteen trips to the Middle East. Robertson does not have to go to the House or the Senate to learn about foreign affairs. He already knows more heads of state than do most veterans of Congress.
Of course, most people's first objection to a Robertson candidacy is not his lack of political experience-that usually comes up later-but his relationship to God. Pat Robertson talks to God a lot. This doesn't strike him as anything very extraordinary. A conversation with God, Robertson insists, is merely prayer. A very large majority of people tell Gallup pollsters that they, too, pray.
But Robertson is confident that he receives some rather explicit information and directives from Up There. This seems to disturb many people because they don't enjoy this personal a relationship with the Almighty. Robertson insists that the only thing that separates him
from other praying Christians is that he believes that God will respond. Compared to those who consider themselves to be in the mainstream of American religion, Robertson has views that are not orthodox. Robertson would insist, however, that in historical context, his views and understanding of how God moves are clearly in the mainstream. Ronald Reagan is helping give credibility to this claim. Furthermore, Robertson is confident that revival is sweeping across the land. It is only a matter of time before his views are once again considered orthodox.
Robertson holds a providential view of American history. He believes that God has had a plan for this land from the beginning. He also thinks that God may now be calling upon him to help fulfill His divine purpose for America. A glimpse of this confidence appears in his 1982 book, The Secret Kingdom. The book opens with a sense of serenity as Robertson views a yellow moon over the Atlantic from the corner of Cape Henry on the Chesapeake Bay, near where the first band of settlers arrived in 1607 to establish a permanent colony. Three days after they landed, Robertson reminds us, the settlers:
The settlers reboarded their boats, sailed around the cape, and took up residence on a river they named after their monarch, King James. As The Secret Kingdom winds toward its conclusion, Robertson reveals to his readers how he was miraculously led to purchase the land upon which the Christian Broadcasting Network would be built. CBN is located just ten miles from the spot where:
But there's more. Those first settlers had planned to found Henrico College, "a school to teach the gospel and train young men and women for Christian service, hoping to reach the world through education." [10] Plans for the college were never realized. But Pat Robertson is a descendant of one of those who arrived in 1619 to build Henrico College. In 1977, Pat Robertson founded CBN University, which a decade later had approximately a thousand graduate students in five programs, including a law school that opened in the fall of 1986.
Pat Robertson holds other views that many Americans do not regard as orthodox or mainstream. In the name of Jesus, Pat Robertson even commanded Hurricane Gloria, which was bearing down on Virginia Beach in 1985, to change its direction:
Whether in response to Pat's command, or merely in keeping with the often fickle and unpredictable behavior of hurricanes, Gloria abruptly stopped, changed course, and headed northeast. The studios of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the people of the tidewater Virginia area were safe from potential devastation.
Pat Robertson saw this event as a sign from God. It proved that not only does God answer prayers, but the inner voice he hears really is God's and not merely the dark side of his own blind ambition.
Lesser men would be hauled off to the psychiatric ward, at least for observation and evaluation, if they admitted that they had commanded a hurricane to change its course. But Pat Robertson is not about to hide his convictions or betray his providential view of history for the sake of a few supporters. To borrow the title of his first book, he is determined to "shout it from the housetops."
About nine months later, Robertson spoke candidly and soberly about the significance of this event with "700 Club" co-host Denuta Soderman:
SODERMAN: How important was Hurricane Gloria in this crystallization process?
ROBERTSON: It was extremely important because I felt, interest-
ingly enough, that if I couldn't move a hurricane, I could hardly move a nation. I know that's a strange thing for anybody to say, and there's hardly anyone else who would feel the same way, but it was very important to the faith of many people. [12]
Robertson's comment implies that his viewers and potential supporters will take the change in the hurricane as a sign that God supports Robertson's candidacy.
Robertson's adversaries hastened to pin the "crazy" label on him. The first time he was invited to be on the national news talk show "Meet the Press," the producer opened the program with videotape footage of that emotional prayer scene. Robertson didn't wince. Nor was he ruffled by a score of implicitly hostile questions. At the conclusion of the program, anchor Marvin Kalb turned to the other panel members and said, "I had the impression listening to Pat Robertson that we have obviously interviewed a rather extraordinary man [emphasis added]." [13]
Media people view Robertson's candidacy with mixed feelings. On the one hand, a novel candidate on the scene makes for interesting news copy. On the other hand, even the remote prospect of having a preacher for president-especially one who talks to God and claims that God talks back-is disconcerting to most journalists. Could an evangelical preacher be trusted tG honor the separation of church and state? Wouldn't he attempt to impose his values on the rest of us? Dare we risk the possibility that he would behave recklessly in foreign affairs, believing that nuclear war is a prerequisite to the second coming of Christ?
Frightening thoughts, these. But they are offset by the fact that almost no one thinks of Robertson as a serious candidate. He may have caught party regulars off guard in Michigan, but as political novices the Robertson forces would certainly be outmaneuvered by the pros early in the campaign. But just in case, Robertson's ideological adversaries were assembling resources and sharpening their pencils to prepare to do battle in earnest. And People for the American Way has accumulated a lot of ammunition that they are now passing out to all soldiers prepared to do battle with Robertson.
"People For," or PAW, which claims 270,000 nonpartisan members
devoted to the protection of constitutional liberties, videotapes "The 700 Club" and otherwise monitors Robertson's activities.
Before the Washington Star folded in 1981, Jim Castelli was that newspaper's religion editor. One of the most able religion reporters in America, Castelli now works for "People For" as a writer and political strategist. He thinks the New Christian Right political movement is on the downswing, but he doesn't want to take any chances. If Pat Robertson wants to run for the presidency, Jim Castelli wants the nation to know that there is more to the man than meets the eye. He describes Robertson's personal manner as "smooth, polished, smiling, reassuring-it is not threatening." But behind the enormous grin and "baby face," Castelli sees "an extremist whose views place him well outside the mainstream of both the Republican party and the nation." [13]
"People For" doesn't deny the right of religious people to mix religion and politics, but the organization has some strong ideas about how the two should go together. In 1986, PAW issued five guidelines that all political candidates and their supporters ought to follow. They should: (1) never claim unique qualifications because of their beliefs or affiliation; (2) refrain from claiming divine or scriptural sanctions for their views; (3) refrain from questioning the morality of religious faith opponents; (4) refrain from claiming God supports their quest for public office or opposes their opponents; and (5) disavow any supporting activities that exhibit religious or other forms of bigotry. In a position paper entitled Pat Robertson: Extremist, Castelli detailed how Robertson, he felt, had violated each of these guidelines.
Some journalists would like to bag a "two-fer" while Robertson is on the scene. They think "the other reverend" should also stop trying to play politician. In 1984 it was difficult to criticize Jesse Jackson for fear of being accused of racism. But with two preachers in the contest, it is somewhat easier to go after them in tandem.
William Safire, New York Times syndicated columnist, launched the first volley at the two reverends. "Neither man is in fact a candidate for president; both are candidates for Bloc Leader." Incensed that either had a right to play in The Big Sand Box, Safire wrote:
taken seriously as a person who could put his views to the test and perhaps put them into government. The poll-preachers can't be bothered with such stultifying preliminaries. [14] Neither, he thought, had "reached the level of political credibility of Mayor Clint Eastwood."
In his indignation, Safire seemed to forget momentarily that the rules of politics have been radically rewritten over the past forty years and that the mass media, of which he is a stalwart member, have been instrumental in this transformation. And there was no such indignation in the press a few months earlier, when rumors of a possible bid for the presidency by Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca began to circulate.
Most people know that media exposure and money have replaced the smoke-filled back rooms of party politicians. But some people have still failed to grasp just how important were Ronald Reagan's years of working before a movie camera in preparing him both as a candidate and as a media-wise president.
Pat Robertson has had nearly thirty years of experience in front of television cameras. From 1968 until early 1987 he appeared daily for ninety minutes on "The 700 Club." A good bit of that time was devoted to talking about politics, the economy, and world affairs. Pat Robertson's experience in front of a television camera dwarfs that of anyone else who has ever considered making a bid for the presidency.
America will never be the same as it was before Robertson began convincing his "700 Club" audience that "We have enough votes to run the country.... And when the people say 'we've had enough,' we are going to take over the country." [15]
Another Virginian, Senator John Warner, who takes the evangelical Christians seriously and watches them with a careful eye, has told them flatly, "If you Christians ever get organized, there is no piece of legislation in the United States that you couldn't get passed." [16]
The novice Christian politician who took on both a sitting vice president and a ranking conservative congressman in the Michigan GOP primary process, and gave both the scare of their political lives in the first outing of the long race for the 1988 presidential nomination, may be on the verge of getting the Christians organized.
Pat Robertson doesn't want to be a Bloc Leader. He wants to be president. He has been working on it for a long time. Many before him have felt they were called, but the job doesn't get passed around very much and the competition is fierce. By any stretch of the imagination, it is a long shot for anyone who aspires to the office.
It is tempting for the liberal establishment to write off Pat Robertson as a passing opportunist. But that would be a serious mistake. In doing so, liberals would ignore the theological basis of everything Robertson has done and the large contingency of Americans who believe as he does.
Robertson believes in the idea of dominion. Jesus Christ restored the right of dominion to mankind after it had been lost in the Garden of Eden. America, the Christian nation, will be the vehicle for fulfilling the Great Commission. It can do so, however, only after putting its own house in order. That he or someone like him would be "called" to reinfuse our national government with the Christian values it has neglected is as logical in Pat Robertson's view as is his conviction that the CBN conglomerate is part of God's plan to redeem the world.
The truth is that Pat Robertson's chances for taking up residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1988, or some future date, are not as remote as the "slim" and "none" suggested by conservative R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., in June of 1986:
Such a sweeping conclusion, barely two weeks after Robertson had rocked the foundations of the Bush and Kemp preprimary campaigns in Michigan, and fully two years before Republicans would gather to select their standard-bearer, reflected the same arrogance as William Safire's diatribe against the reverends Robertson and Jackson. All of the political pundits who are busy writing that Robertson doesn't have a prayer are airing their preference rather than analyzing the resources he can bring to his quest.
What's more, the media's contempt for Robertson actually enhances his chances for success. As long as the pundits amuse rather than
educate their readers, Robertson can go about the business of building his political organization virtually unmolested.
There is another element in Robertson's bid for the presidency--antireligious bigotry. In this era of mass media, bigotry has a way of backfiring against those who express it. Millions of Americans who had little sympathy for Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement he led could not help feeling repulsed when they saw the violence perpetrated against nonviolent demonstrators and innocent children.
Initially, antireligious bigotry will probably work against Robertson. But as he gains more media exposure, and people begin to hear his ideas, they will face a classic problem that social psychologists call "cognitive dissonance." Put simply, the "crazy man" image and the image Robertson himself projects do not match. The more agitated the bigots become, the more outrageous their own behavior will be. In time, this may very well lead uncommitted Americans to reject the Robertson critics.
Then Robertson's task will be to transform the rejection of his critics into sympathy for his own candidacy. It's a long shot, but it is not an impossible dream.
Robertson's adversaries, as well as his supporters, need to remember that the negative press he receives parallels remarkably what was written back in 1965 when a movie actor named Ronald Reagan announced that he wanted to be governor of California.
Pat Robertson wants to persuade Americans that he is the logical heir to Ronald Reagan. In 1986 it appeared that there would be a lot of competitors for that title. But the political difficulties Reagan faced after the revelation of the exchange of hostages for arms in Iran and of covert funds for the contras in Central America clearly tarnished his reputation.
Many, if not most, candidates sought to put some distance between themselves and the once- very-popular president. But that may have been a mistake. There are still a great many Americans who love Ronald Reagan and believe he acted with integrity and good intentions. If that is hard to believe, recall that a lot of supporters of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker remained loyal even after the revelations about the shambles they made of their lives and the misuse they made of PTL monies.
Pat Robertson believes that Ronald Reagan has basically been a good president and is proud to be thought of as Reagan's natural successor. Pat Robertson's challenge, not unlike that of John F. Kennedy in 1960, is to persuade Americans that he can be faithful to his religious ideals without being unfaithful to the duty of upholding the traditional separation of church and state.
Notes
Epigraph: Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," 1979, cited in Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann, Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981). Undated direct-mail fund-raising letter from the Democratic National Committee and signed by Paul G. Kirk, Jr.
Paul Weyrich, "Conservatism's Future: Pat Robertson," Conservative Digest, August/September 1985. Unpaginated offprint.
Hugh McDiarmid, "Bush Foes Win Fight, But War's Not Over," Detroit Free Press, February 22, 1987.
Results of the A. C. Nielsen special audience study were reported by CBN in David W. Clark and Paul H. Virts, "Religious Television Audience: A New Development in Measuring Audience Size." Unpublished paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Savannah, GA, October 25, 1985.
Pat Robertson (with Bob Slosser), The Secret Kingdom (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982), pp. 13-14.
Jim Castelli, "Pat Robertson: Extremist." Unpublished manuscript (Washington, DC: People for the American Way, August 1986), p. 26.
From a broadcast of' The 700 Club," cited in Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann, Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981), p. 161.
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Ch 10: Pat Who?
Televangelism: Power and Politics on God`s Frontier | |