‘Never Been an Evangelist,’ Robertson Says in Anaheim

Undeclared presidential candidate Pat Robertson, attempting to prevent the recent scandal involving popular evangelists from tarnishing his own image, said in Anaheim Monday night that he has “never been an evangelist.”

Speaking at a press conference before a fund-raising dinner at the Anaheim Hilton, Robertson said that while he is “proud of the fact that I am an ordained Southern Baptist minister, I am also much broader in scope than has been portrayed in the press. . . . One of the things I have never been is an evangelist. It’s a very noble calling, but I have just never been one.”

Robertson said his $45-million-a-year cable TV network--the Christian Broadcast Network--is a successful business venture that, in contrast with other TV ministries, runs “ ‘Hardcastle & McCormick’ in prime time or ‘Gunsmoke’ on Saturday afternoon.”

The Jim and Tammy Bakker scandal apparently has not harmed his campaign, Robertson said, noting that a recent ABC/Washington Post poll showed that his personal rating among Republicans had gone up 65% in April and May. Contributions have increased 30% in each of the last two months, he said.

“In terms of crowds . . . and enthusiasm, I haven’t seen any diminishing whatsoever” because of the scandal, Robertson said.

Earlier in the evening, Robertson told some of the estimated 1,200 contributors who paid $100 to attend the dinner that he will almost certainly obtain the 3 million signatures on petitions by September he has said it would take to persuade him to run for the Republican presidential nomination.

“I will indeed be a candidate,” Robertson said. “It looks like the great untapped silent majority is coming to the fore.”

Calling the “moral crisis in America” as important as the “governmental crisis”--if not more so--Robertson stressed the need for a return to traditional values.

“We no longer can have casual sex and recreational drugs and all kinds of aberrant life styles,” he said.

Among those attending the dinner were Harold Ezell, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service western regional commissioner, and his wife, Lee Ezell, an author of Christian books. Lee Ezell is a member of Robertson’s political exploratory committee, Americans for Robertson.