ASHINGTON - The national office of the Christian Coalition yesterday fired the organization's Iowa chairman, Bobbie Lee Gobel, who alleged earlier this week that the Steve Forbes campaign was trying to buy votes for an upcoming presidential straw poll.
Gobel had alleged that a Forbes aide sought to hire 500 people from her Metro Temp company in Des Moines so they would vote for him in an Aug. 14 straw poll of Republican presidential candidates. The poll is expected to draw more than 10,000 people and the outcome could make or break several campaigns.
The Forbes campaign adamantly denied that it had tried to hire the temporary workers, and said Gobel was fabricating the story. Forbes aides noted that Gobel has been highly critical of Forbes and has pointedly questioned the sincerity of his opposition to abortion.
Christian Coalition consultant Michael Russell, who spoke yesterday for the organization, said that Gobel was fired due to an ''unfortunate series of public statements'' by her. He declined to elaborate.
Russell is a vice president of Virginia-based Creative Response Concepts, whose clients include the Forbes campaign. Russell said that his company's work with both Forbes and the Christian Coalition had nothing to do with the firing.
Gobel could not be reached for comment yesterday, but a man who identified himself as her husband said that he didn't think the constitution of the Christian Coalition allowed it to fire his wife. On Thursday, Gobel said in an interview that she stood by her charges that a Forbes aide sought to hire temporary workers to vote for the millionaire publisher, saying, ''I haven't retracted anything.''
The Christian Coalition walks a fine line between politics and religion. It distributes hundreds of thousands of ''voter guides'' at churches that highlight whether candidates agree with the coalition's view on abortion and other issues. But the organization said it doesn't endorse specific candidates, although it is widely viewed as leaning toward Republicans.
Gobel had alleged that Jerry Keen, a former chairman of the Georgia Christian Coalition who went to work for Forbes, called her in February seeking to hire the 500 temporary workers to vote for Forbes. But Keen said in a telephone interview that the accusation was ''unequivocally'' false. Russell declined to say whether Gobel's firing was related to her statements about Keen or her comments about Forbes and other candidates.
In a statement issued yesterday about Gobel's firing, the Christian Coalition said it ''sincerely regrets any inappropriate'' or ''inaccurate public statements that have recently been made regarding presidential campaigns or candidates.''
It was unclear yesterday whether the firing of Gobel meant that the Christian Coalition believes that its leaders should not be critical of presidential candidates. The organization's founder and president, the Rev. Pat Robertson, is himself a former Republican presidential candidate.
