Strong Straw Poll Victory in Iowa Gives Robertson Wild-Card Status in Caucuses

In the end, it may mean little. But on this early autumn weekend, nothing meant more in Republican presidential politics.

So, when religion broadcaster Pat Robertson went head-to-head and beat his major rivals for the GOP nomination in a party fund-raising straw poll, he claimed a place as a wild card in Iowa’s famous presidential preference caucuses.

And he brought into the open a debate within Republican ranks about the likely power of evangelicals in Iowa and the potential of an anti-evangelical backlash here in the months ahead.

Vanquishing the Powerful

Well organized and grinning broadly, Robertson transformed the Saturday night fund-raising event into a cheering, personal rally for his candidacy, along the way vanquishing some of Washington’s most powerful Republicans--among them Vice President George Bush and Senate GOP leader Bob Dole--who threw themselves and their Iowa organizations at the task.

“He proved tonight he can be a player. These people can’t be ignored,” said Mari Maseng, communication director for Dole.

“He’s kind of a wild card in the deck,” observed Iowa GOP Chairman Mike W. Mahaffey.

“For George Bush and the other candidates whose supporters have tended to dismiss them (Robertson’s organizers), we will all now take him more seriously,” said George Wittgraf, Iowa campaign director for Bush.

Robertson told a late-night press conference Saturday that it is time to regard him as among the leaders in the Iowa GOP race by virtue of his political organization, much of it rooted in Des Moines-area evangelical churches. “Nobody else has anything like it,” he said.

Tiny Numbers

For all the hubbub, the straw poll was a contest of incredibly tiny numbers--only 3,843 Iowans voted compared to the 100,000 expected to cast ballots at GOP precinct caucuses in February.

Robertson won with 1,293 votes or 34%. Second, thanks to last-minute block buying of entry tickets, was Dole (R-Kan.) with 958 votes or 25%. Bush was embarrassed to finish third with 864 votes or 23%. Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) was next with 520 votes or 14%, followed by former Delaware Gov. Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV with 160 votes or 4%. Other votes were scattered among minor candidates and former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., who did not attend or contest the straw poll.

The Saturday contest had most unusual rules for participation. To vote, one had to pay $25 to the state Republican Party, a gimmick that helped the Iowa GOP reduce its $250,000 debt from 1986 campaign activities. It also made it an expensive proposition for the campaigns.

Nevertheless, the five participating candidates chose to drop other campaign activities and organizing, and join in the straw poll competition--just as the four losers joined afterward in trying to diminish Robertson’s victory.

“In a small universe, Pat Robertson has shown he can do quite well,” said Bush manager Wittgraf. “He is bringing new blood into the party. We hope they will stay with us through November.”

Only a Taste

Robertson insisted that doubters had sampled only the first taste of his organization. “We will have definite vote goals in every one of the 2,494 precincts; we’ll organize the whole thing. So it’s not a question of whether this group will turn out. They will bring out the prescribed number in Polk County (covering urban Des Moines) and in various other counties in the state.”

In just the last two years, Iowa Republicans have found themselves divided, sometimes bitterly so, between a traditionalist moderate wing and a newly active bloc of evangelical Christian conservatives. The straw poll was the first time this split could be seen and measured in the 1988 presidential campaign here.

Lee Weitzel, a Robertson supporter who attended the straw poll with others from a West Des Moines fundamentalist congregation, explained his political conversion:

“I’ve lived in Iowa all my life and I never did anything except vote. I’d never been to a caucus until a year ago. I thought it was for experts. But through meetings and training sessions (at church) I found out that was the real grass roots.”

Some GOP leaders suggested that Robertson’s victory will trigger an organizing frenzy in the other camps.

“The bottom line is that the Bush and Dole campaigns will crank it up all the more,” said GOP executive director Ronda Menke.

Robertson Trails in Poll

The independent Iowa Poll shows Dole and Bush ahead in the state, each with slightly less than one-third of the GOP caucus vote, with Robertson at only 7%.

Beverly Tauke, a Dole operative in Iowa and wife of Rep. Tom Tauke (R-Iowa), said she was relieved to be confronted with the Robertson operation now instead of later.

“From their point of view, I think it would have been smarter to turn them out in February. From a strategic point of view for us, I’m glad they turned them out now for two reasons--it gives us a target to shoot for and it shows that we have to go out and really get those 25% of the evangelicals who are for Bob Dole,” she said.

Still, the impact of the Robertson show of strength cannot be dismissed.

“This is scary,” said one Bush organizer, who asked not to be named, shortly before the votes were cast. She gazed up into the amphitheater where the event was held at clots of Bush and Dole and Kemp supporters, mostly dressed in business clothes and sitting tamely through the candidate speeches. Then she stared at the large bloc in the center of the hall wearing Robertson uniforms--white campaign T-shirts and plastic boater hats--and rocking the building with their chant: “Pat in ’88.”

The effect seemed obvious on Bush when he took the podium and began his address. Rather than saying he was “damn proud” of serving President Reagan, as his speech was written, he looked at his audience and ad libbed how he was just “very, very proud. . . .”

Staff writer James Risen contributed to this story.