As Kingmakers, What Will They Want? : Jackson, Robertson Could Decide Party Nominations

One is the illegitimate offspring of a black laborer. The other is the son of a U.S. senator, rich and white. One is a liberal Democrat, the other a conservative Republican.

Yet Jesse Jackson and Marion G. (Pat) Robertson are often spoken of in one breath, as if they occupy opposite poles of the same magnetic field. Maybe it is because they are both Southerners, or Southern preachers, or because they are having a similar effect on the presidential campaign.

They form the campaign’s rhythm section, stirring the masses and unsettling the party regulars. No one says, “Right on!” to Richard A. Gephardt or “Amen!” to Bob Dole.

“Both of them have the ability to articulate a burning idea,” said Bert Lance, federal budget director in the Carter Administration and a friend of Jackson.

Neither Jackson nor Robertson has ever held political office. Robertson has never run before. Both men are considered long shots to win a nomination. But both could command enough support to determine whom their parties do nominate.

Although it is nearly two months before the first caucuses and primaries, people are beginning to describe Jackson and Robertson as kingmakers.

Already, anxious party strategists are asking what will Pat and Jesse want in return for their support. A place on the ticket? A job in the Cabinet?

And, already, their influence is being felt as rival candidates defer to them through clenched teeth, giving Jackson and Robertson virtual safe passage in debate after campaign debate.

Meanwhile, their combative campaign styles, blaming one class of people for another’s miseries, cause plenty of consternation among traditionalists who fret about party unity.

Jackson and Robertson are the defiant ones, said Times political analyst William Schneider. “They trade in us-versus-them politics, as opposed to the consensus politics that the party leadership espouses.”

Jackson tends to be at his rhetorical best when he is assailing U.S. military might or excoriating American business for shutting down factories and foreclosing on family farms.

Rails Against Divorce

Robertson is most effective when he is railing against divorce, abortion and left-wing educators and when he is sharing his vision “of a time in America when husbands love their wives and a time when little children will be able to pray in school.”

Democratic strategists worry that Jackson’s unrepentant liberalism could doom the party to its fifth defeat in six presidential elections. Republicans are concerned that Robertson’s bluenose social agenda is unacceptable to party centrists. But they worry more about the consequences of alienating the two candidates.

With their righteous indignation, their quotations from scripture and their uncomplicated solutions to world problems, Jackson and Robertson have become too popular to offend. They have brought too many new voters into the fold.

Moreover, it is much too soon to write them off as contenders. It is not clear yet whether Jackson can realize his dream of a multi-ethnic Rainbow Coalition spreading well beyond his urban black base. Nor is it possible to tell whether Robertson’s cohort of born-again Christians is capable of upsetting one of the Republican front-runners, Vice President George Bush or Kansas Sen. Dole, in one of the important early primaries.

Jackson High in Polls

But among the six Democrats, Jackson regularly scores the highest in public opinion polls in the percentage of people who, at this early stage, say they would vote for him. And Robertson has come in first or second in several Republican popularity contests around the country.

On the other hand, there appears to be little middle ground: The polls also show Jackson and Robertson far ahead of the other 10 major presidential candidates in so-called negative ratings, indicating that there are many prospective voters who actively dislike them.

In many ways, Robertson and Jackson are not alike.

“Pat Robertson is not fighting the same battles I am,” said Jackson during a recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington. “Robertson is a traditional Republican. There were never any barriers locking him out of the party. He was never denied the right to vote. He’s never known those kinds of experiences.”

But Robertson, a former television evangelist, is not a traditional Republican. He has been in several bitter skirmishes with party regulars in Michigan, Florida, South Carolina and elsewhere. He may be white and high-born, but he has embraced what many people of his background regard as a cracker’s faith. Judging from some of the polls, the prospect of a fundamentalist preacher in the White House may not sit well with traditional Republicans, both high-born and low.

Different Paths

Although Robertson and Jackson both came to politics from the ministry, they have followed very different theological paths.

“The Bible that Jackson reads says to America: Feed the orphans and widows. Take care of the stranger at the gate. Take in the exile,” said Martin Marty, a professor of religious studies at the University of Chicago and an expert on religion and politics.

“Private virtue is not as important to Jackson as it is to Robertson, although Jackson does crusade against drug use,” Marty said. “Basically, Jackson would say God wants us to be virtuous; but remember, Hitler didn’t smoke and he still killed 6 million people. The landlord may not drink but he still evicts the poor.”

Robertson’s God is the creator and law giver, Marty said. “Robertson sees America as God’s country. The God of the Bible gave birth to America, sent the right stock over to found the nation, chastises it when it misbehaves, wants it to remain strong and would like its people to be purer.”

What worries political observers on both the left and the right is that followers of the two candidates, if not the candidates themselves, may regard their platforms as divinely inspired, as holy writ.

Divine Approval Needed

There are devout people who don’t want to become involved in a political campaign unless they can be assured that God approves.

“How has the Lord spoken to you? How have you felt the calling?” a born-again woman asked Robertson this fall in Keene, N. H.

Robertson replied: “I prayed about it two or three years. I prayed: ‘Please stop me if it’s wrong for me to run.’

“Do I know (that God wants me to run)? Yes.”

Lately, however, Robertson has tended to play down his religious background.

He resigned his ministry in October, and his speeches since then emphasize his business and legal credentials. He is a graduate of law school as well as divinity school and, at the Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded, Robertson presided over a small telecommunications empire.

Although he is a critic of humanist intellectuals, Robertson likes to show off his own secular erudition.

In one 20-minute speech recently, he lectured on the origins of compound interest, quoted from the works of George Bernard Shaw, Will Rogers, George Santayana and Bernard Baruch and concluded with an analysis of the late Soviet economist, Nicolai Kondratieff.

Still, Robertson’s religious baggage could prove to be a barrier to wide public acceptance. He is a charismatic Christian and has claimed the ability to heal the sick and ward off hurricanes. To believers, these are credible assertions, but to people outside the faith such claims can smack of medicine-show quackery.

Jackson appears less worried about mixing politics with religion. During the recent NBC presidential debate, the first candidates’ forum aired on commercial television, Jackson talked about his participation in a Washington march by AIDS victims and compared himself to Jesus Christ ministering to a leper.

A few days later, Jackson invited reporters to attend a church service with him in Kansas City, Kan., where a considerable amount of time was devoted to raising money from the congregation for Jackson’s campaign.

Jackson began the service with one of his patented stem-winders, a speech guaranteed to bring people to their feet and evoke shouts of encouragement. Then, he extended the hook.

“Think how you would feel tonight if you had a canceled check you had given to Rosa Parks in 1955 or Martin Luther King. It would mean a lot to you. This campaign is in the same line of development.”

First, he asked those willing to give or raise $1,000 to come forward, then $500, and so on down to $25. It was not over until a small boy named Herbert Dunlap had shyly come forward with a contribution of $11.

Weight of Old Baggage

Like Robertson, Jackson still bears the weight of old baggage. It dates to racially turbulent times during the 1960s and early 1970s, when Jackson did not always repudiate violence and when he endorsed the formation of a black nationalist party.

During his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination four years ago, Jackson reminded people of the old, unrefined Jesse when he spoke of Jews as “hymies” and New York as “hymietown.” Jackson aggravated the insult by refusing to disavow Black Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan, who has referred to Judaism as a “gutter religion.”

Today, however, many political observers say both Jackson and Robertson have made significant progress toward winning mainstream support. Jackson has mitigated his criticism of U.S. military policies with calls for a strong national defense and with an endorsement of the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf.

Robertson, looking relaxed, urbane and conversant with the issues, does a good job of dispelling any lingering image of a wild-eyed zealot.

But what makes both men politically formidable are the contributions, as yet unrewarded, they have made to their parties. Jackson and Robertson are credited with inspiring millions of people to register or otherwise become politically active.

An important question for both Democratic and Republican insiders is whether the supporters of Jackson and Robertson will still want to take part in the election if their men are not on the ticket.

“I am confident that evangelicals will support the nominee, whoever it turns out to be,” said Doug Wead, a former evangelical minister, author of religious books and political adviser on religious issues to George Bush.

Ann S. Lewis, a former national political director for the Democratic Party and an adviser to Jackson, is likewise confident that Jackson and his core supporters can be counted on regardless of whom the Democrats nominate.