Robertson in Iowa : The Journey From Pulpit to Populist

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — Now, Pat Robertson is playing for real, 2,490 times over. That’s the number of presidential preference caucuses in Iowa. And the caucuses are where Robertson, in full view of everyone, is trying to sneak up on legitimacy in the 1988 campaign.

So far, the church-rooted populist politics of this ex-television preacher have proved agreeable to small-scale organizing tests. Evangelical faithful, driven as if crusaders rather than campaigners, packed straw polls and arcane Republican party convention battles here and there around the country. Rivals were left gape-jawed and wishing they could only do as well.

But this wins Robertson only headlines. Legitimacy comes with elections. And the elections start here in the moonlight chill at 7 p.m. on Feb. 8.

Fringe Player

Conventional wisdom holds strongly that Robertson is a fringe player, that no candidate from the pulpit who so sharply divides people into categories of “us versus them” can triumph in mass voting, which the Iowa presidential preference caucuses have become. Add to that the nationwide turmoil and retrenchment of the fundamentalist Zeitgeist and you almost have to believe this is a bad year to be a preacher branching out.

Still, many purveyors of this wisdom add a brooding question mark at the end: “But how can you tell with a guy like this?”

One way or the other, whether it is Robertson the contender or Robertson the character, puzzling about his potential remains one of the regular pastimes of this Midwestern political autumn.

Against all the doubters, Robertson has set himself a quota in each of the 2,490 precincts of Iowa, quotas that are closely held secrets, but which are designed to crack the ranks of the serious candidates for the elections to follow.

Here in heavy-agriculture, light-industrial Marshalltown, population 25,000, one such Republican precinct being organized by Robertson and the other GOP candidates is number Five/One--5th Ward, 1st Precinct. It is one of 11 precincts in the middle-class, middle-America, Main-Street-and-Town-Square community, a precinct more or less embodying the idealized heartland image America has for itself.

At coffee shops, in church, in their homes, offices and saloons, Republican voters here have opened themselves up to discuss their views with The Times for periodic stories about the unfolding of the campaign for President.

Since the Republican voters in Five/One were last heard from on these pages a month ago, the stock market has taken its historic plunge, Vice President George Bush and Sen. Bob Dole made their candidacies official, the whole field of GOP candidates finally faced each other in a nationally televised debate, marijuana surfaced as the latest test of character for office, autumn leaves 16 inches deep whipped down the streets on the strength of the season’s first north winds--and duck season opened.

And Pat Robertson has set out to shock the big boys of politics.

Like populists before him, his quest begins by inspiring loyalties of uncommon fierceness.

Consider Roberta Edgar, the woman who could not be kept down.

The Marshalltown housewife drove an hour to Des Moines to hear Robertson speak one Friday night recently, ignoring the twinges in her abdomen. The following evening, Edgar gave birth on schedule to daughter Rachelle Rae. Two days later, Edgar was out with the crowds co-hosting a Marshalltown event for Robertson.

Even in Iowa, where self-serious regard for politics is fabled, this is considered a noteworthy show of enthusiasm.

“My husband and I believe he’s the man who is going to turn the country around,” Edgar explains simply.

How many such devotees would clamber out of bed for Bush or Dole or Rep. Jack Kemp or former Gov. Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV or former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.?

“Frankly, I’m worried. Robertson can really turn them out,” says Sanny (rhymes with Connie) Thompson, the ball-of-fire Marshall County chairwoman for Bush.

Ever since Robertson won a much ballyhooed Iowa Republican straw poll last September, she has been trying to convince neighbors that Robertson is a serious threat, thereby exhorting them to greater labors for the vice president. “A lot of people here aren’t aware of what he (Robertson) can do,” she says.

Beyond Bounds

This is partly because Robertson operates beyond the bounds of the GOP wheelworks. Many Robertson rank-and-file are first timers in presidential politics. They are not on precinct voter lists, contributor lists, volunteer lists. Their phone numbers are not on the party Rolodex lists. They are not on the same channels of political gossip; they attend different social functions. They are unmeasurable in traditional political terms. They are a mystery. And that’s why Robertson is starting to be known, among insiders, as the stealth candidate.

“I’ve lived here for 32 years and I went to a Robertson event where there were 200 people,” Thompson says in wonder. “I knew hardly a soul. And they sat there enraptured, mesmerized by him.”

No need to add: Few George Bush or Bob Dole supporters are described as enraptured.

The Des Moines Register Iowa Poll this month found Robertson supported by only 8% or so of would-be caucus voters statewide. The vice president’s Iowa campaign manager, erudite attorney George Wittgraf, says Robertson likewise barely shows up in Bush’s samplings. But, then again, Wittgraf, driving an Iowa two-lane in the rain, mulls intently every did-ya-hear rumor about a campaign he knows is out there but which he cannot see and gauge with his own eyes.

“You have to worry,” he says, worriedly.

Start With Weather

Inevitably, worriers start with the weather. The deeper the snow, the more fury in the wind, the more Robertson will like it.

There are the “snowbirds”: This is the nickname of that species of well-to-do Midwestern Republican who has reached the station in life where it is possible to head south or west and escape winter. Early February, caucus week, is a favorite time to be elsewhere than Iowa. Wittgraf notes that “basically both Bush and Dole are competing for the same constituency, so we both have snowbirds. It doesn’t cut one way or the other. But Robertson’s constituency is different.”

Indeed.

“If the weather is really bad, your Christian people are probably going to be the most enthusiastic and committed to getting out there. Evangelicals supporting Robertson and to some degree Kemp see it as a cause,” says the Rev. Kerry Jech, who recently overcame his last reservations and threw his wholehearted support to the former minister.

“Christians feel our country has been blessed by God and are concerned that by falling away from his principles that blessing might be removed. So they’re saying it’s now or never--that’s where this cause idea comes from.”

Jech recalls a different mood at his first visit to a caucus a few years ago. It was bitter cold. There was no parking place close to the meeting hall and no candidate to inspire him on. He turned around and drove home and left the voting to others.

But not this time. At 31, with a bug-catcher grin and energy enough for two men, Jech is minister of the non-denominational Hillside Church of Christ and former Marshall County GOP chairman. Because of his stature in the community he was named Five/One precinct captain for Robertson.

Jech says the Robertson quota for Five/One is “significantly more than 10 or 12.” And, he says, “I don’t think I’ll have any trouble turning them out.”

But he is uncomfortable talking with a reporter about too much more, not wanting to spoil Robertson’s hope to strike once again with surprise. “They (Robertson organizers) would rather nobody knew until the last moment,” he concedes.

It would be foolish to try to project from Jech’s guarded comments. But if one could not resist temptation, the math might work like this: Just say that Jech turned out 20 Robertson voters. And say an equal number voted in each of the 2,490 precincts. Robertson would have almost 50,000 votes in the caucuses. Independent observers and party officials have estimated a total GOP turnout in the vicinity of 125,000 voters. Score: Robertson 40%. In a six-way race, call this victory in 80-point headline type.

Personal Contact, Videos

To assemble his quota, whatever it is, Jech will rely on old-fashioned neighbor-to-neighbor contact mixed with contemporary videotape. It turns out you can talk about Iowa the same way you do about California--that a political rally is three people around a television.

Working with “people I know and names they supply me,” Jech plans to bring small groups together after the holidays. Seven out of 10 will have never been involved with politics previously, Jech guesses. Sitting in living rooms, they will be asked to watch and then discuss a videotape of a speech Robertson delivered in Washington on the anniversary of the Constitution. Jech describes it as light on religion but still heavy on “moral themes, family themes.”

The videotape is not a unique tool among candidates, but in Robertson’s case the intimate setting adds to the feeling that those who see the tape are chosen ones , part of a cause.

Still, Jech must live with significant contradictions as he supports Robertson.

To begin with, Jech, although a fellow fundamentalist minister, disagrees strongly with Robertson’s television faith healing as seen on the show, “700 Club.”

“The 700 Club, I’ve watched this and said to myself, this is crazy,” Jech recalls.

Jech says that Robertson must “tone down” the very thing that has so far proven his strongest source of support, his evangelism. At the same time, Jech acknowledges that he is drawn to Robertson in the belief he is “different” from other politicians who are willing to reshape themselves merely to win votes.

In the end, for Jech it is a matter of faith.

“There is a passage in the Bible that says if something is of man it will die; if it’s of God it will live. So, if this is of God, then who knows, he’ll win . . . . If not, it will die a natural death. Robertson will go to the convention with a few delegates. And he will have raised the awareness of moral issues and brought a lot of new people into the party,” says Jech.

And if Robertson polarizes the country along religious lines, so be it.

“All of us are going to have to evaluate--are we one of these or are we one of those?” Jech says. “And I don’t think it’s entirely bad, because it’s about time we made that decision.”

As for his own decision, some people think Jech is still wobbly. The Kemp campaign is competing intensely for the same fundamentalist base as Robertson. Jech says Kemp supporters called recently, suggesting that Robertson’s faith-healing religious background would make him unelectable.

Then the phone in the Jech house rings once again. Jech is about to leave and his wife is busy on the other line. Can we call you back?

“Well, this is Congressman Kemp,” the voice says.

Jech takes the call.

When it is said that Iowa is a place of “retail politics” this is what is meant.

Kemp does not win a convert for his trouble. At least not now. But some tinge of doubt seems to have crept into Jech’s comments. “I’m going to keep reading, looking at this . . . . But right now I’m with Robertson . . . . Wouldn’t it be great if we could get two (to run) together?”

Elsewhere in the precinct, other activists are oblivious to Robertson’s organizing.

Among them are the likes of insurance man Don Diamond and wife Bonita, who look like they walked off a Norman Rockwell canvas about the Good Life on Main Street, or vivacious Barbara Thiesen, the young all-business office manager at Marshalltown Aviation, or any number of others.

They represent the more moderate tradition of the Iowa GOP, whose domination of the party is now under increasing challenge by Christian insurgents. These moderates never seriously considered Robertson, and vice versa.

Thiesen, 34, single, the mother of a teen-age girl, and the Marshall County GOP secretary, has not been impressed, to tell the truth, with any of the Republican candidates. She watched the two-hour GOP Houston debate on public television Oct. 29. “I liked Bill Buckley and Bob Strauss,” she deadpanned. They were the debate moderators.

As for the candidates, Thiesen said the debate served only to eliminate further consideration of dark horses Haig and Du Pont. “For me it’s now down to Bush, Dole or Kemp,” she says with the same enthusiasm a dieter might show in choosing between unbuttered toast or plain yogurt with no fruit.

Thiesen pledges to hold back her decision. It is her personal way of saying she thinks the Iowa campaign has grown too agonizingly long.

Diamond, 60, conversely, keeps pushing himself to make his choice. But, darn it, the rhythms of Marshalltown eat up the time. Each morning at 9 a.m., for instance, Diamond walks 50 feet down Main to the Rose Garden Coffee Shop for a ritualized one-hour coffee session with a dozen men, some in suits and some in overalls, young to retirement age, Republican and Democrat.

They gossip, gamble to see who pays the check, joke, dabble on one subject after the other and keep alive this Iowa social tradition. They agree that Pat Robertson will not be hurt among voters because of the disclosure that his wife was pregnant when they married.

“How many here at the table can say for sure their parents were married nine months before their first-born?” one coffee drinker asks. Whether out of embarrassment or uncertainty, no one answers.

Diamond carries deep doubts about the emphasis on character disclosures this campaign. “It’s going to be darned hard to find people to pass all these tests.”

Philandering, Pot

For him, philandering is excusable, but smoking marijuana is not. “I was surprised the number of people of our age who would still go with (former Democratic candidate) Gary Hart,” says Diamond.

The conversation soon drifts away from politics.

A month ago, Diamond and his wife disclosed they were leaning toward supporting Dole. They looked, and liked what they saw.

Dole’s Iowa campaign has not followed up and moved Diamond successfully from the leaning category to committed. This seems consistent with the widespread notion that the Senate leader is lagging somewhat in grass-roots organizing even though he runs first in popularity polls.

Bush’s campaign, on the other hand, has cautiously approached the Diamonds hoping to change their minds. The couple were offered a copy of Bush’s biography, “Looking Forward.” And they will hear more from the vice president’s camp in the weeks ahead.

“I’ll give Bush a fair look,” Don responds. And he adds that he and his wife recently went to a luncheon where Kemp spoke. “Both of us were impressed with him, too.”