Robertson redux

Splits in the religious right will make it hard to recapture the Christian Coalition's glory days.

By Frederick Clarkson

Feb 24, 1999 | After two years in self-imposed exile, Pat Robertson is resuming control of the Christian Coalition just in time for the 2000 presidential campaign season. But in his second coming as coalition president, Robertson will preside over an organization struggling to move beyond recent problems with the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Elections Commission and recapture its declining political influence among Christian conservatives and within the Republican Party.

As the GOP continues its soul-searching in the wake of the disappointing 1998 election, many Republicans, most notably the Republican governors, are calling for a move away from the culture war. But similar calls have also been heard from within the party's fractured right wing, exacerbating a power vacuum within the religious right created by the 1997 departure of Robertson and executive director Ralph Reed from day-to-day operations of the Christian Coalition. Now, Robertson, back at the helm, is locked in a power struggle.

Eleven years after Robertson's surprisingly strong second place finish in the 1988 Iowa Caucus led to the creation of the Christian Coalition, Christian activist Gary Bauer represents perhaps the most serious challenge to his political and evangelical preeminence. Like Robertson before him, Bauer is parlaying his popularity among Christian activists into a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He has long been the head of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby group closely linked with radio psychologist James Dobson's "Focus on the Family." Dobson's family values rhetoric and Bauer's inside-the-Beltway savvy have always contrasted with Robertson's strident Christian nationalism.

Bauer is a regular on Dobson's syndicated radio program, which reaches millions of listeners every day. Their national network of public policy groups rivals the Christian Coalition for influence in several states. Russ Bellant, author of "The Religious Right in Michigan Politics," called the Michigan Family Forum "the major religious right organization" in the state.

Though the two share similar political goals, the rivalry between Bauer and Robertson surfaced earlier this month at a Coalition powwow for prospective presidential nominees in Manchester, N.H. As a warm-up act for candidate speeches, Robertson was addressing a crowd of more than 1,000 party activists and reporters, recalling the history of his political organization's name. "People wanted to make some sort of milquetoasty name, you know, like 'Greater Family Foundation,'" he recalled. "But I said, 'No, I'm not ashamed to be a Christian! We're going to call this organization the Christian Coalition.'" The reminiscence was a thinly veiled swipe at the Family Research Council and Bauer, whose candidacy threatens Robertson's preeminence in the Christian right.

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