Kemp Angered by Robertson’s Porno and Economics Charges

The battle for conservative voters between Republican presidential candidates Jack Kemp and Pat Robertson is taking an ugly turn as Kemp decries charges that he is soft on pornography and that his economic plan for the country would cause a five-year depression.

The pornography charge--apparently based on Kemp’s original response to a religious news service’s questionnaire, which he later clarified--has dogged Kemp since the campaign in Iowa, where the New York congressman finished fourth and Robertson, the religious broadcaster, came in second.

Opposition to pornography is central to the pro-family agendas of both candidates, who hope to appeal to socially conservative voters.

A controversy over Kemp’s position on a touchy social issue could not have occurred at a worse time for the congressman, whose presidential campaign may be on the line in New Hampshire.

Kemp is also angry about a commercial, paid for by Robertson and running in New Hampshire, that quotes a Wall Street Journal article on what an economics forecasting firm said about Kemp’s ideas on the economy.

According to the Journal article, the firm, Washington Econometrics Forecasting Services, concluded that Robertson’s economics proposals “led the pack” but that Kemp’s proposals would lead to a five-year depression.

Roger Stone, a senior adviser to Kemp, said Thursday that Robertson’s commercial is misleading in the way it refers to the Journal, as if the newspaper were making the judgments about Kemp’s proposals.

But members of Kemp’s staff clearly are more concerned about the issue of Kemp’s stand on pornography, which they say has been grossly distorted.

At least 200,000 magazines and leaflets referring to Kemp’s disputed view on the sale of pornography reportedly have been distributed in Iowa and New Hampshire, with members of the clergy part of the targeted audience.

Stone and Paul Young, Kemp’s campaign manager in New Hampshire, said Thursday that they hold Robertson responsible for some of the material--leaflets distributed in Iowa, before the caucuses held there Monday, that say Kemp, alone among the six Republican presidential candidates, supports the sale of pornography in convenience stores.

Kerry Moody, a top aide to Robertson, acknowledged that the Robertson campaign did distribute some of the leaflets, which he said reproduced material contained in a 40-page magazine, Presidential Biblical Scoreboard, published by the Biblical News Service of Costa Mesa, Calif. The scoreboard rated the candidates on the basis of answers to 20 questions on issues ranging from national security to taxes, school prayer, AIDS, homosexuality and pornography.

The scoreboard gave Robertson a 95% rating, the highest score of all 13 Democratic and Republican candidates. It gave Kemp a 85% rating, the second highest score.

But Moody rejected criticism of the leaflets and the TV ads concerning Kemp’s economic views.

“Obviously, the guy (Kemp) is desperate to come up with something that is going to rope in his troops again. He’ll do anything he can to stop his troops from going to Pat,” Moody said.

Jack Waldron, Washington bureau chief of the Biblical News Service, said Thursday that his organization, independent of the Robertson campaign, has distributed its scoreboard to 1,400 churches in New Hampshire. In addition, Waldron said the news service paid for the scoreboard’s insertion in New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, Manchester’s Union Leader, last Sunday.

Stone said that the Biblical Scoreboard not only misrepresented Kemp’s position on pornography but that the leaflets distributed by the Robertson campaign in Iowa failed to point out that the scoreboard gave Kemp its second highest rating.

On Thursday, Waldron said that his group has decided to revise its rating of Kemp on the pornography question because Kemp has “clarified” his original response, making it clear that he is opposed to its sale in convenience stores.

However, before the clarification, Waldron said, “our editors did not believe that he (Kemp) gave his support to grass-roots efforts to get pornography off the shelves of convenience stores.” Waldron said that the revised editions of the scoreboard would not be distributed before the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday.

As for the leaflets distributed in Iowa by the Robertson campaign, spokesmen for Robertson say they contained Kemp’s 85% rating, exactly as published in the Biblical Scoreboard.

Dan Scalf, director of Robertson’s campaign in Illinois, took responsibility for passing out the leaflets in Iowa. He said about 100,000 were distributed, mostly in parking lots.