Pat Robertson, evangelical and Christian political trailblazer, dies at 93
politico.comThe Rev. Pat Robertson, an influential and often inflammatory voice of conservative Christianity who ran for president in 1988 and helped organize the political strength of evangelicals, has died.
He was 93.His death was announced Thursday by the Christian Broadcasting Network, but no cause was given.The son of a U.S. senator, Robertson initially made his name in broadcasting, as the host of “The 700 Club,” which became the flagship of his Christian Broadcasting Network.
The televangelist’s influence was at his height in the 1980s and 1990s when a religious tint helped shift the Republican Party to the right, and Americans two centuries removed from the nation’s Founding Fathers found themselves battling over the separation of church and state.In 1988, Robertson sought the presidency, running in the Republican primaries. “Although a political amateur, he entered the campaign pledging to ride to the rescue of a nation in moral drift,” the Los Angeles Times wrote later that year.
Unexpectedly, he finished second in the Iowa caucuses behind Sen. Bob Dole and ahead of Vice President George H.W. Bush, the eventual nominee.
