ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601150062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DICK POLMAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
NOTE: Above
STEVE FORBES' RISING POPULARITY made him the target of choice at the GOP presidential candidates' debate in Iowa.
In Iowa Saturday, magazine publisher Steve Forbes was formally anointed as a serious candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
In other words, he was dragged into an alley and beaten to a pulp.
Not literally, of course. Actually, he sat in a chair on a stage near Des Moines and absorbed a succession of withering assaults from rivals who are unhappy that this millionaire maverick now appears to be the second choice among Republican voters, in Iowa and around the nation, on the eve of the presidential primary season.
The 90-minute debate was a refutation of the GOP shibboleth that no Republican shall speak ill of another. With just four weeks remaining before the Iowa caucuses, most of the contenders thought it necessary to pull down the one guy who appears to be riding high with the voters.
Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, in his third presidential bid, is so far in front of the nine-man field - a new Time magazine/CNN poll says he is the favorite of 42 percent of registered Republicans nationwide, with Forbes second at 9 percent - that the Iowa event on Feb. 12 is really a fight for the runner-up slots. The second-place finisher will gain some momentum going into the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 20, and anyone finishing lower than fourth in Iowa is not likely to survive the long haul.
The debate, sponsored by the Des Moines Register, was far rougher than the talk was in New Hampshire in October, when all Republican hopefuls last appeared together in the same room. But the first votes are drawing near, and the pressure to excel is increasing.
That explains why a myriad of questions about taxes, race relations, student loans and abortion was answered in ways designed to draw the most blood.
The first punch of Saturday's Darwinian battle was thrown by Lamar Alexander, the former Tennessee governor who, until Forbes came along last autumn, had figured to challenge Dole by positioning himself as the ``outsider'' in the race. But Forbes, by spending more than $7 million of his own money on saturation television ads, has been stealing Alexander's theme about the evils of the ``Washington culture.''
So Alexander went after Forbes' pet proposal: a flat income tax that would junk the current sliding scale of tax rates, and make everyone pay the same 17 percent. Alexander called it ``a disaster for America, a truly nutty idea. ... It would cause a real estate crash,'' because, he pointed out, Forbes also would eliminate mortgage-interest deductions.
Alexander, a mild-mannered fellow who can target the jugular when necessary, later followed up with this sharp jab: ``Steve, the only thing you ever ran is a magazine that you inherited - and you raised the price of your magazine. Now, what would you do with taxes?''
Commentator Pat Buchanan, also vying for the outsider label, sought to paint Forbes as a spoiled rich kid. Buchanan has been talking like a populist lately, taking aim at wealthy firms that export jobs, and he sees Forbes' tax plan as an attack on the middle class.
Eyeing Forbes, he said: ``Your flat tax looks like one that was worked up by the boys at the yacht basin.''
Even Dole could not resist, despite his huge lead.
Forbes, in his TV ads, has been painting Dole as a Washington insider, and this debate was a chance for Dole to lash back, free of charge. So, as Dole recounted how he led a fight to close tax loopholes for the wealthy back in 1982 (``they were making off like bandits''),, he glanced across the stage and said: ``Steve, you'd know about this. You understand big money and big corporations.''
And later, while contending that a Republican president would lead a genuine fight for a balanced budget, Dole quipped that if the government found itself awash in red ink, ``you could always borrow the money from Steve Forbes.''
Forbes insisted that his flat tax ``would allow Americans to keep more of what they've earned,'' and thereby spark an economic boom.
``Ordinary people can achieve extraordinary deeds when allowed and encouraged to take responsibility for themselves,'' he said.
Sen. Phil Gramm, the conservative Texan, also took a few mild swipes at Forbes, but, as always, he focused his fire at Dole. For much of the last year, at great expense, he has sought to narrow the huge popularity gap that separates him from the Senate majority leader, but to no avail. And when he tried Saturday - by casting himself as a man of principle, and Dole as a deal-cutter - Dole stayed polite for a while.
But Dole finally gave up on senatorial courtesy and reached for his stiletto.
Gramm was hectoring him about the budget stalemate in Washington. Gramm did not like it when Dole cut an interim deal with President Clinton to put federal workers back at their desks, in the absence of a final balanced-budget agreement. Gramm said he would never have done that. And he was not pleased to learn that Clinton and Dole have been speaking by phone recently.
Gramm then said: ``Bob, is there some kind of secret deal you've been cooking up with Bill Clinton? Would you care to share it with us?''
In a millisecond, Dole shot back: ``Next time you're in town, look me up.'' The political junkies in the audience roared with laughter, recognizing Dole's point: He runs the show, while Gramm has spent so much time on the political hustings that he now has one of the worst Senate attendance records.
Dole was not done. He turned to his next questioner, a high school student, and said he wanted to hear from her, because ``she's passed every grade she's ever been in'' - sparking gasps from those who knew that Gramm failed third, seventh and ninth grades. (Gramm later pointed out that he earned a doctorate in economics with the help of ``a loving mother.'')
(EDITORS: STORY CAN TRIM HERE)
Nobody expects Dole to finish second in Iowa. The caucus system, in which Iowans must be sufficiently motivated to attend party meetings and publicly declare for a candidate, puts stress on a candidate's grass-roots organizational skills. Dole has been working assiduously to get his loyalists to the caucus meetings, as has Gramm.
Forbes is the wild card. By all accounts, no candidate has ever done well in Iowa solely on the strength of saturation TV advertising. But analysts believe that Saturday's attacks on Forbes, carried live on CNN, may have been primarily intended for the voters of New Hampshire in the first real primary of the season.
For now, at least, Forbes is trying to take his new status in stride.
As he put it Saturday in the debate, ``It doesn't surprise me that now that my message of hope, growth and opportunity is taking root, that now the politicians are sniping at me.''
LENGTH: Long : 119 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB