Religious vs. Secular Appeal : Robertson Tailors His Message to Audiences

A different Pat Robertson from the one who had just addressed a southern New Hampshire health care forum sat at a table in his hotel room here, expounding on AIDS. The aura of moderation that marked his morning appearance had dissolved.

The AIDS virus is not transmitted by heterosexual activity, the former preacher said, and scientists are “frankly lying to us” about the nature of the fatal affliction.

Robertson added that acquired immune deficiency syndrome “is not going to be prevented by using condoms.”

“This is a total illusion. . . . The AIDS virus is not in the human semen--it is in the bloodstream. We’re not being told that,” he said.

The Republican presidential candidate’s remarks, in an interview with The Times, contradict most medical studies about the disease’s cause and its prevention. Robertson said he drew his conclusions from a report he read that was presented to the British House of Commons, adding: “But any scientist can tell you that’s where AIDS comes from.”

Touchy subjects such as AIDS rarely come up at Robertson campaign events. Unless prodded by questioners or speaking to a particularly religious audience, Robertson rarely strays these days onto such controversial ground.

A three-day trip to New Hampshire and Maine, which ended Saturday, illustrated the two approaches used by Robertson as he tries to extend his appeal beyond the politically inexperienced, largely religious troops he now commands, to more traditional, secular Republicans.

In a speech in Concord before 800 mostly religious supporters gathered in his honor, Robertson launched a ringing endorsement of school prayer--implying that it would ease the problems of illiteracy, drug use and teen-age pregnancy. He defended the right of landlords to discriminate without criminal penalty against AIDS patients or “those who possibly are carriers of AIDS.” He suggested that those gathered there were like American revolutionaries, engaged in a “holy cause,” and would be invincible against the “enemy.”

Repeatedly, the listeners interrupted with sustained applause, and several standing ovations. When asked for donations, hundreds responded.

Admires His Family Views

Grace Pierson, a 79-year-old Concord resident who attended, said she is backing Robertson for his traditional family views and for another, less definable reason: “Trust.”

“He is very sincere,” she said. “He has values I hold to . . . Christian principles.”

The themes were very different when Robertson spoke to mainstream Republican audiences. There was no mention of school prayer, AIDS or holy causes in talks with underwriters, construction industry workers and health care employees. Instead, Robertson stuck to safer subjects, such as Social Security and the budget deficit.

But there, the Robertson charisma and the shared beliefs that religious audiences find so compelling about him were not always enough to attract new supporters. The applause was far less enthusiastic, and some listeners were openly disappointed and critical.

“His presentation was shallow and contradictory,” said Raymond P. D’Amante, a Concord lawyer who attended a Robertson speech to the Concord Area Home Builders Assn. “It’s as if he’s floundering with a few ideas and no program.”

Conservative Appeal Key

Appealing to voters such as D’Amante, a Ronald Reagan supporter, is of marked importance to Robertson’s campaign if he is to mount a serious challenge to the Republican front-runners, Vice President George Bush and Kansas Sen. Bob Dole. The need is particularly great in New Hampshire, which, unlike the South and parts of the Midwest, does not have a large evangelical community to provide Robertson a firm base.

Among the mainstream, Robertson raises eyebrows with his strong brand of me-against-them politics. In his New Hampshire visit, Robertson suggested that Secretary of State George P. Shultz was trying to move the United States into “global accommodation with communism. . . . I want a secretary of state who will represent America,” Robertson said.

Robertson also professed shock at what he described as the holding-for-ransom of American POWs in Vietnam.

“There’s been a tremendous cover-up (of) the fact that they’re there,” he said at a Manchester underwriters’ meeting. Pressed on the matter by a startled guest, he said his belief that POWs were being held came from a news story on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded.

Stresses Education Issue

In general, Robertson’s campaign is emphasizing such themes as fiscal conservatism, the American family and a desire for a more traditional educational system.

In his non-religious stump speech, he calls for a private savings plan that would eventually replace Social Security, as well as a private program that would allow Americans to save money for old-age health costs. Both plans would be structured like individual retirement accounts, and contributors would receive tax breaks.

Robertson’s program, similar to one championed by fellow Republican contender and former Delaware Gov. Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV, would begin with voluntary contributions by younger workers and would eventually include all workers, he said.

He acknowledged that if younger workers fled the Social Security system, the fund’s solvency could be threatened. “Long range, it’s the intelligent way to go, but short range it’s just a question of whether the dollars worked out,” he said at a Manchester gathering.

He also favors cutting Amtrak rail service and turning the U.S. Postal Service over to its workers to run as a private business. Among his favorite budgetary targets is the Legal Services Corp., which provides legal aid to the poor.

‘They Do Mischief’

“It’s not really helping the poor,” he said. “They do mischief in many communities.”

Robertson admits that his insistence that he could balance the federal budget because he has the “political will” to do so is undercut by his plans to offer tax breaks to large groups of Americans. Many of the tax breaks are intended to further his social goals, particularly when it comes to the family.

He advocates, for example, that personal income tax deductions be increased to between $3,000 and $5,000 per person, that the income tax “marriage penalty” be erased and that families in which women stay at home with their children receive tax breaks. In secular appearances, he leaves it at that, but before religious groups and in interviews, he grows more outspoken.

“Instead of continuously rewarding people who break up their marriages and get into poverty--that’s a reward because we pay the bills for them--we can begin to reward at tax time stable family units,” he told religious supporters at his Concord dinner.

In an interview, he said that his proposals are not meant to pressure women into being full-time mothers. But, he added, many working women might opt to stay home if they received financial help because “they really don’t take home much money.”

He said the average woman worker takes home only about $1,800 to $2,000 a year “by the time you’ve taken the cosmetics and lunches and transportation and child care and all the other stuff they have to pay.”

Accent on Mothers

When asked whether tax advantages would be offered to men who chose to stay at home to care for their children, Robertson laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he said. “I think little children need mothers.”

Although such financial incentives would be costly, they would ultimately help the nation’s budget deficit, Robertson said in an interview.

“Creation of more children, more workers--more consumers, if you will--will stimulate our economy, bring in more taxes,” he said.

Along similar lines, when Robertson talked about education, his emphasis shifted as he moved from a secular to religious audience. Before home builders in Concord, he spoke of returning to educational basics and “moral training”; before religious backers, he says he would “bring God back into the classrooms.”

Some New Hampshire voters who witnessed Robertson’s tour expressed discomfort with his programs; others were angered by what they said was his lack of preparation.

Before health care providers in Nashua, Robertson listened as speaker after speaker told him that enormous old-age health bills were bankrupting families and that neither Medicare nor private insurance was sufficient.

Sees Free-Market Solution

Robertson said the problem arose because “government is interfering with the private sector” and that “a free market could solve that problem.”

His remarks left Barbara Salvatore, executive director of an association of Nashua home nurses, visibly angry.

“I do not feel that he knows what he is talking about,” she said.

A similar reaction greeted Robertson at the home builders’ meeting in Concord.

“He tried to use the catchwords of today,” said real estate developer Ed Allgeyer. “He sure hasn’t thought out the answers. I should think at this point (having specific proposals) would be the one thing distinguishing someone from the pack.”