Robertson Invasion Fails to Materialize : Bush Seeks to Avoid Michigan Setback

Posted on the broad veranda of this resort’s century-old Grand Hotel, agents of Vice President George Bush’s presidential campaign scanned the horizon for an enemy armada.

They feared that their archrival in this state, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, would be ferrying supporters across Lake Huron from the Michigan mainland to pack a GOP leadership conference here over the weekend and once again deal Bush’s presidential hopes an embarrassing setback.

The invasion never materialized because Robertson’s chief strategist, Marc Nuttle, concluded that this conclave would be devoted mainly to courting supporters rather than taking action. “We save the boatloads for when there are votes,” Nuttle said.

Nevertheless, the anxiety in the Bush campaign reflects one of the most striking paradoxes of the early 1988 GOP presidential campaign. The competition for delegates in Michigan, designed in part to give Bush an early boost toward the nomination, threatens to turn instead into a debacle for him just 10 days before the critical Iowa precinct caucuses next Feb. 8. Already, the Michigan campaign has raised some troublesome questions about the intensity of support for his front-running candidacy.

Criticized and Derided

As things stand now, it is Robertson rather than Bush who seems likely to emerge as the chief beneficiary of the Michigan process, which has been much criticized and derided for its early start--delegate selection began way back in the summer of 1986--and its tangled rules.

Another Republican who stands to benefit at Bush’s expense is New York Rep. Jack Kemp, the only other active contender for the state’s delegates. Kemp finished a weak third in the August, 1986, primary in which the 9,000 precinct delegates who will start the process of picking Michigan’s 77 national convention delegates were selected. But by taking advantage of the Michigan rules and allying himself with Robertson against Bush, Kemp could well come in second behind Robertson and consign Bush to a dismal third-place finish.

At a press conference here before addressing the conference, Kemp acknowledged that the rules for the Michigan competition seemed “Rube Goldbergish,” but he noted the rules were not his idea and added: “Being an old quarterback I just never, ever complain about playing in somebody else’s ballpark.”

Sounding Like a Winner

Robertson, meanwhile, also here for the conference, sounded much the way a winner is expected to sound, talking of the need to unite the party after his expected triumph.

The television evangelist called at a press conference for “a coalescing of various groups to go fight the enemy” once the issue is settled in the intraparty contest. “My thrust in everything I can possibly do in the Republican Party nationally and in the Republican Party in Michigan is to bring about coalitions, to expand the party, to make it a party of inclusion, not exclusion, and to go fight the Democrats in the fall,” he said.

With their backs against the wall, Bush’s strategists here still predict victory when the national convention delegates are chosen in January. “We will win Michigan,” said John Long, who is directing Bush’s efforts here.

Overturning a Rule

But Long acknowledged that Bush’s chances depend heavily on getting the courts to overturn a rule approved last week by the party state committee, which now is dominated by an alliance of Robertson and Kemp backers. The rule would deprive Bush of a key bloc of supporters his strategists have been depending on at the January convention.

The skirmishing so far has exposed some surprising flaws in Bush’s front-running bandwagon. Lee Atwater, national overseer of the Bush campaign and other top Bush strategists have always claimed that organization--mastery of the vital nuts and bolts of political operations--is one of their greatest strengths.

Yet here in Michigan, in a series of tests going back to last spring, the Bush forces have been consistently out-organized and outmaneuvered by Robertson’s backers. It was those experiences that caused the Bush forces to warn that Robertson might ship a boatload of backers to this island, just as he had dispatched busloads to previous battlefields in Michigan and Iowa.

‘Element of Surprise’

“By telling people about it at least we can take away the element of surprise,” Mary Matalin, Bush’s Midwest coordinator, explained to a reporter.

What makes Bush’s organizational difficulties all the more striking is that he has outspent his rivals significantly in the state. The Bush forces acknowledge spending about $700,000 in Michigan, but David Walters, who runs the Robertson campaign in the state, claims the figure, counting money spent early on by Bush’s political action committee, is closer to $3 million, contrasted with $300,000 for Robertson.

At the root of the Bush campaign’s organizational weakness, his rivals say, is the lack of something money can’t buy--the emotional juices that are needed to fuel even the best-designed political machinery.

“I’ve basically come to think that nobody supports Bush for the right reasons,” said Dick Minard, a veteran Republican organizer who is Michigan campaign director for Kemp. “They support him because he is a good vice president and they think he deserves the nomination, not because they believe he’d be a good President.”

Bush supporters say the enthusiasm needed to energize his candidacy will come after he formally declares his candidacy next month, and point out that he has been handicapped in generating support by his vice presidential role.

“Like all of the Bush kids I have suggested that he (Bush) stake out a political identity for himself,” says Neil Bush, the vice president’s son, who represented his father at Mackinac while the vice president was escorting Pope John Paul II in Detroit.

Young Bush said his father had held back out of deference to President Reagan but would soon be sounding a clear call on his own horn.

Another problem for Bush in this state is that he has depended heavily on the efforts of local party leaders, who though generally loyal to him, sometimes have had priorities of their own to pursue.

Fund-Raising Strategy

It was these leaders who by staging the selection process for Republican delegates last year--Democrats will pick their delegates in a separate caucus in March--hoped to earn extra attention for their state and boost fund raising for the state party.

Many also thought Bush would be best able to take advantage of that arrangement, because he had won Michigan handily in his 1980 campaign against Reagan and had close ties to the party leadership.

But Robertson saw the Michigan system as an ideal opportunity to exploit his chief asset--the intense commitment of his supporters. Robertson’s organizers produced a bumper crop of precinct delegate candidates in the spring of 1986 and in August elected enough of them to put Robertson even with or ahead of Bush. Then last February, Robertson delegates turned out to county conventions in large enough numbers so that in combination with Kemp delegates they were able to take control of the state party.

A Working Majority

With a working majority on the state party committee, the Robertson-Kemp forces rejected a Bush proposal to allow about 1,200 GOP nominees and officeholders at the state and county level, most of them presumed to be Bush supporters, to attend next January’s convention and vote in addition to the 9,000 regularly elected delegates.