ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220074
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
NEW HAMPSHIRE'S primary results have focused the race for the Republican nomination helpfully on two things: (a) an issue that the primary's winner, Pat Buchanan, successfully zeroed in on - middle-class economic insecurity; and (b) the need to explicitly repudiate Buchanan's responses to that issue.
Zillionaire Steve Forbes' dearly bought balloon may make noises in days ahead as hot air continues to escape from it. But his fourth-place showing on Tuesday suggests his flat-tax proposal, along with his campaign, is falling as fast as it went up.
Similarly, Sen. Phil Gramm's departure from the race even before the first primary suggests that the major issues he championed from the GOP's 1994 congressional sweep - spending cuts, deregulation, balanced budgets - also have receded.
Among the more telling comments on Bob Dole's loss was the noble but pathos-ridden senator's own admission, on the eve of Tuesday's voting, that he "didn't realize that jobs and trade and what makes America work would become a big issue."
Dole may be forgiven his confusion. Joblessness is low; productivity and profits are up; the economy has grown for several years. In fact, such news is part of the problem: a disconnect that many Americans feel between the economy's prospects and their own.
In the past two decades, amid advancing technology and a globalizing marketplace, those high up on the economic ladder have done nicely. But many in downsizing work places and in the new service economy have become fearful about downward mobility. Such malaise has been compounded by alienation from government and by the perception that America is losing its way morally.
Enter Buchanan. He exploits fears, stirs resentment, identifies scapegoats. He attracts visceral support, as voters put it in Tuesday exit polls, by "saying what he believes." Never mind that he believes things like the importance of preserving white people's inherited control of the country.
Code words tossed to an angry electorate proved a winning contrast to the plodding campaign of the Senate majority leader, who seeks the nomination on grounds of maturity and experience. Dole's message has been, in effect: Elect me, and I'll lead you . . . somewhere. As New Hampshire made evident, that's not enough.
Now Dole and his principal opponent, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, ought to have at least one compelling message. They can explain why their party isn't Buchanan's.
Too much shouldn't be made of the former commentator's victory by a narrow margin in a multicandidate field. Indeed, Buchanan attracted a lower percentage of New Hampshire votes than he did in 1992 against George Bush. And Dole was softened up by a barrage of TV ads tearing him down, on which Forbes lavished millions.
Still, the critical race now is between Dole and Alexander for who will represent the GOP mainstream, wherever that is, against Buchanan's extremism. This will make it harder to win with a little pandering and co-opting of Buchanan's message, as the candidates tried in Iowa by gay-bashing, and as Dole tried last week by questioning corporate profits.
Alexander and Dole need to address economic and cultural anxieties. They should do so, though, by rejecting not just Buchanan's dangerous economic proposals - higher trade barriers, for example - but also his divisive appeal to resentment and bigotry and his rigid allegiance to the religious right's agenda.
In doing so, the candidates and other Republican leaders may have to at least implicitly acknowledge and repudiate party strategies, past and present, subtle and not-so-subtle, that have made Buchanan and his supporters feel at home in the GOP.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB