Spin Control: Pat Robertson helped shape Washington GOP politics

Pat Robertson, who died last week at 93, wasn’t from Washington and probably didn’t spend much time here, except on television screens in homes around the state tuned to his program on the Christian Broadcast Network.

National obituaries noted he ran for president in 1988, usually with a brief mention that he finished second in the Iowa caucuses behind Bob Dole but ahead of George H.W. Bush before dropping out.

If one were to pick a person who wasn’t from Washington but had an outsized impact on state politics in the last half of the 20th century, it would be hard to top Robertson. His campaign for the presidency in 1988 mobilized members of what are sometimes known as Christian conservatives, turning them into a dominant force in the Republican Party.

Some are too young to remember – and others who are old enough to remember might like to forget – Washington’s unique place in the ’88 campaign for president. Forget about runner-up in Iowa; this was the only state to go solidly for Robertson in the run-up to the Republican nomination.

Thanks to strong organization and diligent preparation, Robertson forces flooded the Republican primary caucuses in March that year. They had at least a plurality of the participants, and maybe a majority. (The numbers in caucuses are at best, malleable, and at worst, manipulatable.)

It was not the first time “rebel forces” had wrested control of some caucuses from GOP mainliners. Ronald Reagan supporters had accomplished a similar feat in 1980, but the Reagan coalition was broader and pretty much all was forgiven when he captured the nomination and the White House.

By 1986, Reagan’s second term was approaching its sunset and the GOP field was growing. Robertson, probably the nation’s best known televangelist and the founder of the Christian Coalition , began talking about running. The next year he was one of several potential candidates invited to a local group’s “Road to ’88” speaker series and the one who got the most fervent reaction.

He promised a cheering crowd of about 400 at Gonzaga University’s Martin Centre to push for a constitutional amendment against abortion and bring God back into public schools if elected, and called for a coalition that would “see the greatness of America restored through moral strength.”

After the precinct caucuses, the Robertson forces’ showed their tenacity through the subsequent rounds of county conventions and the state convention, where they forced through a platform that included a ban on abortion, allowing voluntary prayer and Bible study in public schools, getting the United States out of the United Nations and making English the nation’s official language. Their true strength was shown in the tally of Washington delegates sent to the Republican National Convention.

Robertson delegates 39. George H.W. Bush delegates 2. This even though Bush was the sitting vice president who had a lock on the nomination some two months before the national convention started.

Eastern Washington delegates to that national convention included Marlyn Derby, an anti-abortion activist who had been repeatedly cited and briefly jailed for violating a court order against protesting in front of a Spokane medical building, and Russell Van Camp, an attorney who represented Derby and other protesters in a long-running court fight.

One convention rumor suggested Washington’s delegation was given accommodations in one of the most distant hotels to keep them out of the spotlight. Probably not true, as accommodations are primarily the luck of the draw. But the delegation did complain about some of the R -rated movies on that hotel’s cable service, and convinced the management to disconnect it for the duration.

National television networks kept an eye on the Washington delegation, hoping for some pro-Robertson outburst at what was essentially a Bush celebration. It never came. The Robertson delegates cheered loudly for the Bush acceptance speech and Van Camp told my then-colleague Lonnie Rosenwald he was so happy with the speech he’d give Bush money.

That November, the Robertson forces in Washington fared poorly. The state went for Democrat Michael Dukakis, even though the nationwide vote easily gave Bush the White House. State Rep. Bob Williams, a staunch Christian conservative, lost badly to incumbent Gov. Booth Gardner. Derby, whose campaigning was delayed until she returned from the convention, lost her first of several challenges to longtime Democratic Rep. Tom Foley. The Republicans gained a seat and a bare majority in the state Senate but lost two seats in the state House and fell to a 61-37 minority. The biggest GOP victory was in the U.S. Senate, where Slade Gorton, whom Robertson forces passionately disliked, beat Democrat Mike Lowry.

Their ability to take control of the caucuses prompted some Republicans to join with Democrats, independents and good government reformers to push for a Washington presidential primary to replace the precinct caucus system. Presented with an initiative to create a presidential primary in 1989, the Legislature overwhelmingly passed it without requiring a statewide vote.

That wasn’t the end of the caucuses, however. The parties challenged the new law in court and continued to award some or all of their delegates – it changed from one presidential election to the next and from one party to the other – through caucuses. Delegates to GOP county and state conventions get their start in the caucuses and the platforms approved in those conventions are usually issues which Robertson could endorse.

Robertson never ran for president again but his supporters carved out a place in the Washington Republican Party for themselves and other Christian conservatives. It’s a bloc that is often the majority of the state GOP organization and one of the reasons the party holds most of the local partisan offices in Eastern Washington. But it also has to share some responsibility for the party being in the minority statewide for much of the past 35 years.

Editor’s note: Pat Robertson founded the Christian Coalition. This column was updated on June 16, 2023, to correct the name of the organization he founded.