Campaign Portrait His Eyes Have Seen the Glory

By Laurence I. Barrett/Washington

Occasionally, when a wayward voter rebuffed their earnest entreaties, they dropped to their knees to pray for the misguided soul heading toward the ballot boxes in the crowded Ames, Iowa, arena. But when their candidate finally strode onto the podium with the beaming countenance of a man blessed with faith in the righteousness of his path, the campaign workers leaped off their feet in joy. Leaning forward with the mild-mannered charm of a televangelist talking to a camera, yet drawing on the rhythmic cadences of a polished preacher, the Rev. Pat Robertson delivered an ecumenical version of the message that has attracted such a fervent cadre of crusaders to his Republican presidential campaign. "Whether we're rich, whether we're poor -- whether we're management, whether we're labor -- whether we're black, whether we're white -- whether we're educated, whether we're uneducated -- We -- Are -- All -- Americans!"

Robertson was on a roll last week. In the straw poll in Ames, he scored an upset that left the Iowa campaign of George Bush reeling. In Michigan, he easily won a procedural vote that solidified his lead in that state's convoluted delegate-selection process. And in Chesapeake, Va., he announced that he had collected the 3 million signatures he insisted were necessary to persuade him to run for the presidency. Having grossed $10 million in contributions, Robertson is no longer just a fringe factor. Republicans now must ask, What does Robertson really represent?

Though Robertson professes astonishment at his victories, he is in fact neither surprised nor fazed by his success. He is a different species of candidate, a disarming striver whose supreme self-confidence rests heavily on the belief that "God has a plan for everyone." In his case, this includes running for President. Those truly amazed are conventional Republican sachems who had regarded him as no more than a colorful nuisance. They have watched his partisans in four states marry religious fervor with organizational energy to win local contests that are normally ignored. Richard Bond, deputy campaign manager for Bush, says he has found a common reaction in conversations with local party leaders around the country. "It's uncanny," says Bond. "Republicans kept insisting, 'It can't happen here' -- until their doors were blasted off."

Robertson's ability to draw new, enthusiastic workers into dreary political scut work was most evident at the meeting in Ames, a fund-raising dinner that featured a straw poll for those who bought $25 tickets and had an Iowa driver's license. The Bush campaign, along with those of Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, went all out to pack the arena with supporters. But even before the first candidate spoke, it was obvious that Robertson's forces had pulled off a coup. Dressed in white T shirts and hats emblazoned with their champion's name, they clearly outnumbered and outcheered their rivals.

When the 3,843 votes were counted -- more than twice the turnout of eight years ago, when Bush won national notice with a surprising win -- Robertson had blindsided his opponents with 34% of the votes, vs. 25% for Dole, 23% for Bush and 14% for Kemp. Although the results had only symbolic significance, Robertson's victory showed his ability to turn out loyal supporters, which is critical to success in Iowa's February caucuses. With the verbal italics he uses so effectively, Robertson later proclaimed, "The Vice President has been wounded very badly."

As with similar victories, Robertson's local organizers were able to attract Iowans who had not been politically involved. A year ago, a crude instruction sheet called the "Christian Political Action List" advised new activists to "hide your strengths" and "pretend to be interested" in general party business. Much of the missionary work was done in evangelical churches, particularly those with Pentecostal practices.* Typical was Debi Nuhn, a teacher who had come 250 miles with her husband Tom and other members of the Word of Life Christian Church. Like Robertson, she said, members of her charismatic congregation were "born-again and spirit-filled." The Nuhns have become involved in politics only because of Robertson.

The Ames upset prepared the stage for Robertson's Tuesday press conference announcing the success of his yearlong petition drive. Standing before a pile of what he said was 3.3 million signatures, Robertson declared, "The people are urging me to run." He will, he said. The formal announcement is scheduled for Oct. 1 in New York City.

Robertson completed his political hat trick Tuesday night in Lansing, Mich. The state's nominating process began more than a year ago with the election of , some 9,000 precinct-level delegates. Though Bush and Kemp both invested much time and money, Robertson's supporters pulled off a surprise: in succeeding county-level conventions, they joined forces with some Kemp supporters to win control of the party machinery. The issue last week before the state's party central committee was whether to enlarge the pool of precinct delegates by nearly 1,200 party regulars, most of them Bush supporters. The committee decisively voted against the Bush position, making it likely that Robertson will win the most delegates in Michigan.

Robertson's now proven ability to ambush conventional candidates still does not make him a serious contender for the nomination. Even Paul Weyrich, a conservative strategist with whom he is ideologically compatible, thinks the most Robertson can achieve is a "realistic shot at determining the outcome" by controlling a pivotal delegate bloc. Robertson runs poorly in national surveys, fifth out of six candidates in a September TIME poll.

More significant, he has a high "negative" rating: 28% of Republicans said they had a "favorable" impression of him and 62% an "unfavorable" one. That 2-to-1 negative ratio was by far the worst of any candidate's. Dole, for example, has a 70% favorable rating, 17% unfavorable.

Robertson's negatives arise not merely because he is a clergyman with no direct political experience. Rather, Robertson has been hurt by the impression that he would not only mix church and state but also impose a cross of his special design on society. Robertson complains that the press fixates on his religious views instead of his whole record. "What we have to do," argues his communications director, Connie Snapp, "is change the focus . . . let people know the whole Pat Robertson story."

Robertson counts among his ancestors Presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison; his late father A. Willis Robertson served in the House and then the Senate for 34 years. Young Pat won a Phi Beta Kappa key at Washington and Lee University in his hometown of Lexington, Va., served in the Marines and earned his law degree at Yale. But he never worked as a lawyer. While living in New York City with his bride Dede, a nurse, Robertson was trying to succeed in the electronics-components business when his religious calling overtook him. By his account in Shout It from the Housetops, a miracle produced a buyer of his interest in the company. This led Robertson to detour to a seminary; he was ordained in 1961.

Robertson rapidly moved toward the mystical, perceiving frequent and direct instructions from heaven. Dede, a Roman Catholic, was concerned that her husband was displaying "schizoid tendencies." Their firstborn Timothy was a toddler, and she was pregnant with the second of their four children, when Robertson felt called to a religious retreat in Canada. She begged him by letter to return: "I need you desperately." Robertson was troubled. "Was this God telling me to go home," he recalls wondering, "or was it Satan?" After prayer, he wrote to his wife, "I can't leave. God will take care of you." Tension eased when Dede later had "her own experience with the Lord."

It was God's direction, says Robertson, that steered him through negotiations to buy a defunct Virginia TV station. Starting with only $70 in cash, he created the Christian Broadcasting Network and other enterprises, such as CBN University. By the early 1970s he was one of the most prominent entrepreneurs in the rapidly growing Christian broadcasting field. Last year CBN reported $183 million in donations and revenues and employed some 4,000 people.

Along with success came a rapid move toward political conservatism. In his Ames speech, as elsewhere, he produced a litany of what average voters have been saying to him. "They tell me they want the ultimate downfall of Soviet tyranny everywhere, including the Soviet Union," he declares. "They want to return to a time when husbands love their wives and wives love their husbands, a time when children can pray in school again."

These days there are no fund-raising letters with his name, like those that appeared a year ago following his victory in the Michigan precinct-level delegate elections, declaring "The Christians have won!" He emphasizes tolerance, denying vehemently a quote attributed to him that only born-again Christians and Jews should hold Government jobs. But he volunteers in an interview that nonbelievers would have no place in a Robertson Administration because "I don't think that atheists have their act together."

Unlike some fellow electronic preachers who are closer to the tent-revival school of rhetoric, Robertson is a cool, sophisticated performer. His platform, The 700 Club, for which Robertson is no longer host, was an eclectic talk show rather than a pulpit scorched with hellfire. With his ruddy good looks, disarming sincerity and ready smile -- flashed even when he is being ^ goaded or challenged -- Robertson, at 57, is almost Reagan's equal as a charmer. Bumping into a reporter he knows casually, Robertson stops for a chat. Just doing some reading, he says, and I came across that Nixon cover story you wrote in 1968. Great job; holds up well.

But Robertson can be as combative as the college wrestler he once was. That shows in his bitter libel suit against former Republican Congressman Paul McCloskey. A fellow Marine in Korea, McCloskey last year charged that Robertson had talked openly about getting his father, the Senator, to keep him out of combat. Robertson was indeed temporarily detoured to Japan before their troopship reached Korea, but he insists he neither sought nor received preferential treatment. Robertson sued for $35 million, and the litigation is now approaching a climax.

"In all candor," Robertson told TIME last week, "I think it was a bad idea" to sue McCloskey. He is eager for a settlement, and would accept a retraction of the charge. He implies that McCloskey's defense may be financed by malign interests. "He's either crazy, or some person is paying his legal bills," says Robertson. "We don't know whether it's Arab influence -- he's a very close friend of the P.L.O. -- or another campaign." Why might Arabs be paying McCloskey's bills? "Because I'm so pro-Israel," Robertson says. McCloskey, now a lawyer in Palo Alto, Calif., replies, "He's crazy." His bills are being paid under a personal insurance policy, McCloskey says.

The trial, if it comes to that, would sidetrack Robertson just as he is competing in actual primaries instead of isolated organizational fights. As Campaign Manager Marc Nuttle says of the skeptics, "They're never going to believe we're serious until we start winning." Unless that species of political miracle happens, many establishment Republicans will continue to say, "It can't happen here." But with each passing week, they say it with less conviction.

FOOTNOTE: *The Pentecostal movement, dating back some 90 years in the U.S., believes in glossolalia (speaking in tongues), faith healing and receiving direct prophecies from God. The charismatic movement, which started in the 1950s, with adherents in several Protestant denominations and among some Roman Catholics, shares these practices but in a less doctrinaire way. Robertson is a Southern Baptist and a charismatic.