I was a Democrat for about 55 years.
And as governor, James
Burns of South
Carolina a few years ago said,
he said the Democratic Party didn't.
I didn't leave it.
It left me and I, I think that they moved
so far to the left in 1984
that I just couldn't go along and I,
I have been more at home
for a number of years
with the national platform
of the Republican Party
and I finally made it official.
Weren't you though
it would have been natural
to think you'd have supported
say Jimmy Carter
just on moral and religious grounds.
Well I supported him in the
primary activity,
but I interviewed him
for my television program several days
before the election.
And after I'd had that experience,
I voted for Gerald Ford.
You were unimpressed
that I was unimpressed.
That's right.
Why do you think you'll
make a good president?
Well,
I love
people, and I
think that may be a very important thing.
I have had 25 years of leadership.
I, I built up an organization from $70
until now.
We have
somewhere with stolen part time
employees over 3500 people.
We operating all around the world,
and I've been
feeding and clothing
the needy five
and a half million people last year.
We're
educating the people in the inner cities
and in Appalachia how to read and write.
I have very broad foreign experience.
I've been to 44 countries
and I have been dealing
with the issues of our world
now for at least ten years
on television
on a daily basis, practically.
So I am informed
and I do have a law degree
and I'm
pretty much up
on the issues of the world,
but people are looking
for strong leadership,
and I think I can give the point.
Ken, can frankly, can religion
get in the way of politics?
That is, can your religious beliefs,
which we respect, affect you in a
way that hurts politically?
Well, I think
there's a
misapprehension now
in the country about what
religious people feel.
I'm a student of history,
and I go back to the roots
of this nation.
My family did.
And I
have studied
and I live here
in sort of the cradle
of the American democracy
in this part of Virginia.
And in those days,
the leaders of our country
were profoundly religious people.
George Washington.
John Adams.
Madison.
These men were deeply spiritual people.
And I don't think our forefathers
intended religion
to be separated from the government,
but they just didn't want some big church
trying to dominate them.
They didn't want a federal church.
And I totally agree with that.
I don't think that the institution
or church as such
should be trying
to manipulate the government.
The government should be
should be neutral
in matters of religion,
and they should ensure freedom
for all people.
Right.
Okay.
Well, does that
mean that Pat Robertson
could vote for an atheist for president
as long as he agreed with his policies?
On things international and domestic?
I don't think that anybody
who doesn't believe in
God really has his act together,
if I can say that honestly.
You could not vote
for an atheist for president.
I think he's
missed a great part of reality.
I believe that
94% of the American people
believe in God,
and I think that that is essential
to a responsibility.
You see,
I have to give account to God
for everything I do.
I don't care if somebody sees me or not.
I have to give account to him.
But I'd like to know
that people are in leadership
positions who feel that
moral sense of constraint.
Why then do
you think
it would have to be a thought
that despite their own religious beliefs
and their desire
not to have a national church, they left
the word God out of the Constitution?
I was talking to
one of the
students
from our public policy school
at our university today, and he indicated
that the early Congress required
some type of affirmation of faith in God,
of at least the Declaration
of Independence for all of the new states
that join the territories
in the West and places like that.
Let's see.
The Declaration of Independence
is really part of our founding document,
and that talks about the laws of nature,
but it's of God.
But it's not the law of the land.
The Constitution is the law of the land.
And when they
was celebrating
that this year,
and I would think that the framers
had to be pretty careful
to leave out a word as important,
as you say
God must be, to leave it entirely
out of the Constitution.
Well, you know, in the transmittal letter
signed by George
Washington,
it said In the year of our Lord 1787.
So they did put it in the Constitution.
In terms of the transmittal document,
I think that
it was
understood that the
declaration of Independence
was the framework
in which the Constitution was written,
and it wasn't necessary
to recite that over again.
All right.
Could you vote for a Jew for president?
Absolutely.
I have
the head of the Jewish Coalition
for Reagan.
Bush is working
as my assistant press secretary.
He left the White House
to come to work for me.
He is a
is a very wonderful conservative Jew.
And I think like him
on almost every issue, I'm
I'm very supportive of Jewish people
in this country and Jewish
people in Israel.
Let's get into some things
tomorrow night.
Reverend John,
anchor Burke is going to be here.
I don't know if you know him.
He's with the Assemblies of God.
And this will be an exclusive
tomorrow night
and apparently has some new revelations
in the in the Jimmy Tammy Baker scandal.
I wonder how you think or perceive
that scandal has affected your campaign.
All I know is the reaction of people.
I've just come home last night
from New Hampshire.
I had a wonderful reception
in New Hampshire this last weekend.
I was in Iowa. The same thing.
Our people have won in Michigan.
They won in South Carolina.
And I don't see it
affecting me at all, frankly.
But I must say that.
Well, I'm I'm a little surprised
and obviously dumbfounded at
what's coming out.
But nevertheless,
I don't see it hurting me
because people understand
that I'm different
in the Billy Graham's different.
I think they're smart enough
to make a difference between people,
but they do associate you with evangelism
and with television.
And after all, you had the most Christian
broadcast networks,
very successful enterprise
is certainly associated
with being on the tube,
talking about faith.
There has to be some carryover
Well, I think that,
frankly, as I read the Bible, that
the saying is the judgment begins
at the house of God.
And this to me is a prelude
for a great spiritual revival.
But if there's something wrong
in the household of God,
God himself will take care of it.
He, as I said,
a few weeks ago, God's cleaning house,
and that that's necessary.
And I applaud it.
If something is in there
that shouldn't be,
let's get it out and get rid of it.
And the thing
that people have to understand
or in your audience and other places,
that this is the prelude
to revealing some things
in their lives, too.
It won't be the end.
It'll be the beginning.
And that's
what that's
what spiritual revival is
when people get their lives
right with him.
And I, I applaud what's happening.
I think Jerry Falwell
has been very statesmanlike
in the way he's worked.
Ben Armstrong, some of these other man
and they are
they're bringing out the things to light
and it should be brought out.