Kemp-Robertson Alliance Chips Away at Bush

Tony Story, a fundamentalist minister in this table-flat, working-class Detroit suburb, took control of the Republican Party in Michigan’s 15th Congressional District in February, and that was bad news for Vice President George Bush.

Story, 39, was elected district party chairman with the backing of a new statewide alliance between the forces supporting the presidential bids of television evangelist Pat Robertson and Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.). He ousted Terry Bennett, a moderate chairwoman who had alienated Kemp and Robertson supporters by giving out too many leadership positions in the district to backers of Bush’s presidential campaign.

‘Too Accommodating’

“I liked Terry but she was too accommodating to the moderates,” Story said candidly as he relaxed in his office at the Westland Full Gospel Church. “The Kemp organization at the state level wanted her out. They contacted the Roberston people at the state level, who agreed.”

And, since the Kemp and Robertson camps together controlled a combined 70% of the 15th precinct’s delegates to the party’s district-level convention, Bennett and other Bush supporters in district leadership positions were easily brushed aside.

Story’s victory is just one of a growing number of political coups recently pulled off by the novel Kemp-Robertson conservative alliance here in Michigan, and its members now assert that their successes have disproved Bush’s earlier, highly publicized claims that he won a clear-cut victory in Michigan’s presidential sweepstakes during last August’s primary.

That primary was the unprecedentedly early first step in the presidential campaign. It began a long and complex process that will end next winter when Michigan becomes the first state to select delegates to the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans.

Claimed 60% of Delegates

The day after the primary, with about 25% of the results in, Bush claimed victory, saying that he had won 60% of the 9,000 precinct delegates, who will ultimately determine the shape of the state’s 77-member national convention delegation.

Now, however, everyone seems to agree that Bush actually won only between 40% and 45% of the delegates in the three-man race. That apparently leaves the conservative coalition with a majority. Robertson is said to have won about 40% of the precinct delegates, while Kemp has another 10% to 15%.

“Bush initially set a very high standard for himself in Michigan by spending millions of dollars here, and by saying he had 60% of the precinct delegates,” said Clark Durant, a Detroit attorney and top Kemp activist in the state. “He put a marvelous spin on the news after the August primary,” making it look like he had won enough precinct-level delegates in the primary to control the state convention in 1988, Durant added. “But now the test is whether Bush can come out of Michigan with what he set himself up for.”

Sought to Stop Bush

The Robertson-Kemp conservative coalition was formed late last year to stop Bush from gaining control of Michigan’s delegation, which will be selected at a state convention in late January or early February--before the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary. The alliance was initially forged by state-level organizers for the two candidates, and it was later sanctioned by their national campaigns, Kemp and Robertson aides say.

See Alliance as Fragile

Campaign officials for both Kemp and Robertson say that Michigan is the only state where they have agreed to pool their resources. They concede that an alliance between two competing presidential candidates is naturally fragile, and they do not know how long the two camps can maintain a united front against Bush.

“This is very atypical, politically, and there are people in Washington who seem very uncomfortable with us doing it here,” said David Walters, state director for the Michigan Committee for Freedom, a Robertson political organization.

Some political observers also wonder whether Kemp’s willingness to form such a close association with a television evangelist--especially in the midst of the sex and blackmail scandal surrounding television evangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker and their PTL Club--might hurt Kemp as he seeks mainstream support. On Tuesday, a Los Angeles Times Poll found that those who oppose Robertson’s presidential candidacy now outweigh those who support him by a 7-1 margin.

Michigan Republicans also warn that attempted takeover of the state party machinery by this uneasy coalition of right-wing conservatives and fundamentalists now threatens to sunder the once-sleepy party.

Bar Scene in ‘Star Wars’

“Right now, the party looks like the bar scene in ‘Star Wars,’ ” complained Peter Secchia, vice chairman of the Republican National Committee and the party’s national committeeman from Michigan.

But the only thing the leaders of the alliance seem to care about at the moment is a tactical victory in Michigan’s presidential sweepstakes. The Kemp and Robertson forces believe that if they can embarrass Bush in Michigan, a state Bush considers a stronghold and one in which he beat Ronald Reagan by a margin of nearly 2 to 1 in 1980, they will be able to slow down the front-runner heading into Iowa and New Hampshire.

‘Mutuality of Interests’

“The ultimate goal (of the alliance) is stopping George Bush from getting convention delegates, and there is absolutely a mutuality of interests on that point between the Robertson and Kemp organizations,” said John Buckley, a spokesman for Kemp’s presidential campaign. “I firmly believe Pat Robertson stands to benefit from this, and Jack Kemp, too,” Walters added. “It’s to the advantage of conservatives to stand together.”

But with the Bush and Kemp-Robertson camps making conflicting claims about their strength in the state, it is not yet clear who will come out of next year’s Michigan state convention with the most delegates.

Impact Disputed

In fact, Bush organizers still deny that the conservative alliance has dented their hold on the state.

“George Bush will control the floor of the state convention, and we will get roughly half of Michigan’s delegates,” predicted John Long, executive director of Bush’s Michigan campaign committee in Lansing.

Secchia, co-chair of Bush’s campaign committee in Michigan, dismisses the alliance as little more than a “sandbox game” being played by inexperienced newcomers to the party. “This Kemp-Robertson alliance is a marriage of convenience, not ideology,” he said. “Kemp has no support in Michigan, so his people needed Robertson’s help to make a showing.”

But there is clearly evidence that Bush’s position in Michigan may be much weaker than was thought last August. At the midwinter Republican state convention in late February, the Kemp-Robertson alliance stunned the Bush organization by taking control of the powerful central committee of the state party, gaining 69 seats out of a total of 101.

That put the conservatives in a position to control the rules-making process for next winter’s state convention. At the same time, they can now block any attempt by Bush loyalists on the central committee to delay next year’s convention. Bush organizers deny they ever planned to delay the convention.