Pat Robertson

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on "The 700 Club," September 13, 2001.

Falwell apologized shortly thereafter, but reiterated his statement last year on NPR and last week on CNN.

It looks as if Mitt Romney’s effort to reach out to the GOP’s right-wing base is kicking into overdrive beginning this weekend:

A visit this weekend to the Rev. Pat Robertson's school illustrates the challenge for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as he courts the all-important evangelical vote.

The former Massachusetts governor is to give the commencement address Saturday at Robertson's Regent University in Virginia, a golden opportunity to reach core GOP voters.

Of course, when the invitation was extended to Romney back in March, some of the students at Regent were pretty upset about it:

Selecting presidential candidate Mitt Romney as its May commencement speaker has riled some of Regent University's students and alumni who say his Mormon faith clashes with the school's bedrock evangelical Christianity.

"What we're against is the fact that Mormonism is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Christian values and what we believe," said Doug Dowdey, a Virginia Beach pastor who said he graduated from Regent's divinity school last year.

…

Dowdey said he welcomed diverse viewpoints at Regent but that the university's commencement should reflect the school's distinctive religious values.

"If Pat wants to hold a political rally, well, hold one. Why not? Just don't hold it at commencement," Dowdey said.

While Romney is busy courting Robertson personally, his campaign is preparing to send out surrogates to court right-wing grassroots activists all over the country:  

In the next few weeks, the campaign will take a more direct approach, sending two of its evangelical supporters for meetings with pastors and others in key primary states.

Mark DeMoss, a public relations executive whose prominent client roster includes the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, said he volunteered to travel to South Carolina and Alabama on Romney's behalf.

Jay Sekulow, a Washington insider and chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, an advocacy group founded by Robertson, is heading to Iowa and Florida, DeMoss said.

…

Hugh Hewitt, the conservative blogger and radio talk show host, is trying to help Romney by publishing the book "A Mormon in the White House?" which urges Christians not to oppose the candidate because of LDS teachings they consider heretical.

Speaking of Hewitt, he interviewed Romney’s son, Tagg, following last night’s GOP debate so he could offer his spin.  Guess who he thought won?

I thought he knocked it out of the park, he was clearly a fantastic candidate tonight, and showed why he’d make the best president.

…

My Dad is articulate, he knows how to communicate his vision, he’s very relaxed in front of the camera, he’s a fantastic communicator. I think clearly, anyone who watched the debate tonight would say boy, isn’t Mitt Romney, wouldn’t Mitt Romney make a fantastic president. That’s the same feeling people get when they meet him one on one. It’s the same feeling they get when they meet him in large groups.  

Two months ago, Sen. John McCain’s campaign released this announcement:

U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential exploratory committee today announced that Marlene D. Elwell will serve as the Deputy Director of Coalitions, as well as the National Director of the Americans of Faith coalition for the Arizona Senator's exploratory committee.

…

Elwell was also friend and advisor to the Christian Coalition from its inception through the 1990's, lending her years of expertise to the building of the grassroots movement. She has continued working to build coalitions within the faith community. In 2004, she led the effort in Michigan to pass the state's amendment to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman.

"Senator McCain has a proven track record of supporting conservative causes, and is the principled voice our party and nation needs," said Elwell. "It will be my privilege to serve the Senator and communicate his message of common sense conservatism nationwide."

McCain stated that he was grateful to have the support of Elwell and looked forward to working with her. "Marlene is a highly respected conservative leader and is an important addition to my team. Her advice, counsel, and networking abilities will be instrumental in communicating my strong record of social and fiscal conservatism."

On Friday, The Washington Post reported:

In the midst of the Sen. John McCain's presidential announcement tour comes news that Marlene Elwell -- one of the Arizona Senator's leading social conservative advocates -- has parted ways with the campaign.

Elwell, who was one of McCain's chief liaisons to the faith community, confirmed her departure in a brief telephone interview this evening. She did not offer any further explanation on the decision.

Elwell, who is based in Michigan, rose to prominence in social conservatives as a leading member of Pat Robertson's campaign. She was also a prime mover in the Michigan effort to define marriage between a man and a woman that passed in 2004.

This news came just two days after the Post reported that McCain’s various past efforts to appeal to the Right were, at best, half-hearted:

[McCain's advisers] argue that it was never McCain's hope to become the darling of social and religious conservatives -- only to get enough votes among those Republicans to win the nomination. "McCain's goal wasn't to become their candidate," a campaign official said.

Elwell’s role on the McCain campaign was to “convince fellow Christian right activists that the senator is not the social moderate they think he is.”

Now she is gone.  So has McCain finally decided to stop trying to ingratiate himself with the Right, or has Elwell finally realized that McCain’s previous efforts to do so were pure political pandering?  

Earlier this week, Gary Bauer of American Values, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Mark Earley of the Prison Fellowship, met with The Christian Science Monitor to discuss the candidates running for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, among them John McCain:

And why is Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona struggling in his second run for the presidency, despite his solid conservative voting record on social issues? It's all about a speech he delivered in 2000, in which he referred to two religious leaders – Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell – as "agents of intolerance."

Bauer says that comment was interpreted among social conservatives as an attack on them and their involvement in politics, not just on the two men named. "Obviously, he's more conservative on these social issues than Giuliani is, but there isn't anything comparable in Giuliani's rhetorical record where he went after Christian conservatives in a rhetorical way," Bauer says.

It is exceedingly odd that Bauer would cite McCain’s “agents of intolerance” remarks as the primary reason McCain is having so much trouble winning over the Right, considering that Bauer had defended McCain at the time.

For those who don’t remember, Bauer endorsed McCain on February 16, 2000.  Just under two weeks later, McCain delivered his “agents of intolerance” speech and that same day, Bauer appeared on Fox’s “Special Report with Brit Hume” and defended the speech, saying that McCain was not targeting Christian conservatives:

I do believe that if you're a conservative voter, a traditional voter, if you're pro-life, if you're pro-family, there's enough -- plenty in Senator McCain's record to justify a vote for him. Over the weekend, he said he would overturn Roe versus Wade. When he asked how -- when he was asked how, he said by appointing judges that understand the Constitution. Roe versus Wade was unconstitutional.

He said today that faith-based voters are an important part of any opportunity we have to deal with the major problems facing the country. I hope after the firestorm of today is over with that we can focus on the fact that he's reaching out to traditional conservative and Christian voters, and I think he'll get a fair share of them.

Not long thereafter, Bauer began claiming that even though he had been in the audience during McCain’s speech, he had had nothing to do with its language:

Today, he explained: ''I didn't get a chance to see that speech until it was too late to do anything about it. It had already been passed out to the press.''

Mr. McCain's aides challenged the statement, saying Mr. Bauer not only reviewed the speech in advance but also added a paragraph to it.

As the Washington Post reported on March 26 of that year, Bauer was anything but a passive spectator:

Then came what Bauer calls "this very unfortunate thing." Bauer had seen a draft of McCain's speech on the plane--he swears he thought he was on his way to a veterans event--but because it had already been distributed to reporters, he couldn't delete anything. He did add some lines, to soften the blow, praising Dobson and Charles Colson. He later defended the speech as making a distinction between certain leaders and grass-roots Christians.

Yet seven years later, Bauer has managed to position himself in a right-wing leadership role commenting on McCain’s problems with the Right, somehow neglecting to mention his own direct involvement with McCain and the very incident he now cites as responsible for the candidate's woes.       

The above-mentioned March 2000 Post article was one of many that took a look at Bauer’s future after McCain lost the primary race to George W. Bush, wondering what would become of him now that he had become persona non grata to the Right. And at the time, Bauer was unrepentant:

"I think I made the right decision and if I had to do it over again, I'd do it again," Bauer said

Well, luckily for you Gary, McCain is again running for president, so here’s your chance.   

“I talk to a lot of evangelicals and the only person who takes Pat Robertson seriously is Tim Russert.” So claimed Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in a speech at a church in Westchester County, New York last week. Such pointed disavowals of Robertson by other religious-right leaders have occasionally followed the televangelists more absurd and incendiary comments – such as when he declared that Ariel Sharon’s debilitating stroke was God’s punishment for “dividing God’s land” and called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – so you might think that Cromartie was responding to recent allegations that Robertson threatened a bodybuilder involved in lawsuit over Robertson’s “Age-Defying Shake,” or perhaps to Robertson’s warning today about Muslim politicians “taking over” the U.S. But Cromartie was trying to make the point that the televangelist, sometimes referred to as a GOP “kingmaker,” is increasingly marginalized.

But it’s hard to believe that. According to its web site, Robertson’s “700 Club” is available “in 95 percent of the television markets across the United States, the program is carried on ABC Family Channel cable network, FamilyNet, Trinity Broadcasting Network, and numerous U.S. television stations and is seen daily by approximately one million viewers.” His Christian Broadcasting Network garnered $166 million in donations from March 2005 to March 2006, and he is the second most well known religious figure in America.

If one needs more evidence of Robertson’s continued influence, especially on U.S. politics, just look at the Republican presidential candidates lining up to curry his favor. Sam Brownback and now John McCain have taken to the CBN airwaves to convince Robertson’s viewers of their conservative credentials. And both Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are scheduled to speak at Robertson’s Regent University.

As John Green of the Pew Forum said, figures like Robertson “are moving off the stage, but they're by no means inconsequential. … They still have good reputations, particularly with evangelicals who are politically active. There are candidates who want to be seen with these people." As long as that’s true, it’s too early to declare Pat Robertson a political has-been.

Remember about a month ago when it was reported that Pat Robertson had threatened to kill Phillip Busch, the man who is suing him over his “Age-Defying Shake”? Well, Robertson now denies threatening him, though he does admit that he warned Busch that God was going to punish him: 

The evangelist's remarks were made off the record, before a court reporter and videographer began recording the proceedings. But a transcript of the deposition includes a discussion about what he said.

Busch, acting as his own attorney, asked to speak with U.S. Magistrate Judge James Bradberry "concerning Mr. Robertson's comments when he came in here, his off-the-record comments to me, which I perceive to be a threat against my life."

Robertson: "It's not a federal crime to invoke God's power, and that's all I was doing.... There was no threat against your life, and I certainly didn't mention your family.... You are delusional."

Busch: "What, exactly, did you say?"

Robertson: "I said he's gonna take your strength away..."

Busch: "He's gonna take my strength away?"

Robertson: "... that you are so proud of."

While this is clearly the most sensational aspect of the on-going lawsuit, it is the least of Robertson’s worries at the moment.

Last month, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention declared Rudy Giuliani’s campaign for president doomed, citing the former New York mayor’s reputation as a supporter of gay rights and a woman’s right to choose. He told The Hill that “If [Giuliani] wins, he’ll do so without social conservatives” – a result Land considered impossible. But less than two weeks later, Giuliani garnered a warm reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he side-stepped social wedge issues and emphasized his supposedly Reagan-like leadership qualities in the context of 9/11. Conservative columnist Bob Novak declared Giuliani “the big winner here,” and he came in second to Mitt Romney in the CPAC straw poll. Unlike Romney, noted Novak, “Giuliani had not stacked the crowd with supporters,” a strategy that casts doubt on Romney’s first-place showing. And Giuliani continues to top polls of primary voters.

According to Novak, “Some activists expressed dismay that so many conservatives would cheer Giuliani without even making him offer anything for the Right” – apparently flying in the face of what every other Republican candidate has been doing for the past few months. But it’s still early in the campaign. Giuliani is scheduled to speak at Pat Robertson’s Regent University next month, and the televangelist himself has declared that the former mayor “did a super job running the city of New York and I think he'd make a good president.” Last year, he helped raise money for Ralph Reed, an unsuccessful candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor who is better known as the former head of the Christian Coalition and one of the seminal organizers of the Religious Right in the late 80s and 90s.

And recently, he has been making promises to the far Right on an issue that could be seen as a calculated revision of his abortion position: judges. “On the federal judiciary I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am,” he announced in South Carolina. And he offered specific praise for right-wing members of the Supreme Court: “I think those are the kinds of justices I would appoint -- Scalia, Alito and Roberts.” Such statements fall short of the ham-handed pandering of long-shot candidate Rep. Duncan Hunter (“If any judicial candidate comes before me and can look at a sonogram … and not see valuable life, then I will not appoint him,” said Hunter to applause at CPAC), but they do echo almost exactly the words President George W. Bush deployed when he was campaigning for the office.

Apparently, some of the students at Pat Robertson’s Regent University are none-too-pleased that Mitt Romney has been invited to deliver a commencement address:

Selecting presidential candidate Mitt Romney as its May commencement speaker has riled some of Regent University's students and alumni who say his Mormon faith clashes with the school's bedrock evangelical Christianity.

"What we're against is the fact that Mormonism is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Christian values and what we believe," said Doug Dowdey, a Virginia Beach pastor who said he graduated from Regent's divinity school last year.

The controversy over Romney's visit has bubbled for two weeks among students, spilling onto Regent's internal electronic bulletin board, "The Branch." Scores of e-mails on both sides of the debate have been posted, a student said.

Robertson is defending the invitation, though not necessarily Romney’s Mormonism: