CAMPAIGN ’88 : Robertson Not Quitting

Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson said Sunday he has a divine mandate to run for President and will not stop until he is in the White House.

“There is an enterprise the Lord set me on a year or so ago--running for President of the United States,” Robertson told a crowd of about 3,000 at the Happy Church in south Denver.

“Out of what seems to be defeat, we are laying the foundation for a great victory for this nation. It may not be in 1988 . . . but I am not going to quit,” Robertson said, adding that he would run again in 1992.

“That is his plan for me and for this nation,” he said.

Robertson has conceded he has virtually no chance of winning the Republican nomination with Vice President George Bush holding a commanding lead in delegates. But Robertson says he wants to stay in the race in the hopes of influencing the GOP platform that will be drawn up at the national convention in August.

Robertson, who last year gave up his credentials as a Southern Baptist minister, has said he no longer wants to be identified as a “television evangelist.”

But he looked at home in the pulpit Sunday as he spoke to four different congregations in the Denver area during a three-hour period. His Easter message centered on the hope of the Resurrection--as he assured churchgoers his own campaign is not dead.