
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 10, 1995                   TAG: 9509110119
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN ROBERTSON SPEECH, POLITICAL GOALS CLEAR

The Christian Coalition's goal is to gain substantial influence, if not full control, over the Republican Party apparatus in all 50 states, its president, Pat Robertson, told an enthusiastic gathering of 4,000 activists.

In a keynote speech Friday night at the coalition's fifth annual ``Road to Victory'' conference, Robertson said that when he founded the Christian Coalition in 1989, he set out explicit ideological and partisan goals: ``I wrote down on a yellow piece of paper, a yellow pad, the goals of the organization for the next 10 years.''

One of the goals was to elect a ``conservative majority'' in both Houses of Congress by 1996, a deadline Robertson said was beaten by two years; another was the election of a ``conservative president'' in 1996, a goal he contended is now on the horizon.

Another goal, he said, was ``that we would have a significant voice - actually I said something else, but Ralph [Reed, the coalition executive director] said I can't say that here tonight because we've got press - that we would have a significant voice in one of the political parties by 1994.''

Robertson cited a 1994 article in the magazine Campaigns and Elections that ``says that the Christian Coalition, and I'm quoting them, these are not my words, is quote `dominant in Republican Parties in 18 states and substantial in 13 more.' That's 31 states.''

Robertson said the coalition is now so well organized that ``we can put together right now a grass-roots network that is unparalleled. But we are only a portion of the way there. We must complete the job in all 50 states. I'm glad to see all this that they say about 31, but that leaves, my goodness, a lot more. We've got more work to do. Because I like 100 percent, not 60 or 70.''

Referring to a 1993 Washington Post article that described religious right activists as ``largely poor, uneducated and easy to command'' - an assertion The Post corrected the following day by saying there was no factual basis for it - Robertson told a laughing audience: ``Just think what these poor uneducated people have been able to accomplish in six years. Think what they could do if some of them ever got educated.''

``Folks, we are going to get to these goals, if we are willing to work,'' Robertson said. ``I want 10 trained workers in every one of the 175,000 precincts in America.''

Robertson said critics have accused the coalition ``of being ``power mad' and they accuse us of using stealth tactics, because we go out and knock on doors ... It's like Vince Lombardi when he was at the Green Bay Packers. He taught his players to block and tackle, that was his secret weapon.''

The comments about GOP state parties made by Robertson, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988 and founded the coalition the next year, ran counter to the careful portrayal of the coalition as a non-partisan organization by Reed and others.

Reed said in a speech to the coalition, ``We do not seek to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party or any party.''

by CNB