THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 23, 1995 TAG: 9507210022
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
The Republicans by now should have the next presidential election in the bag. They have everything else - the Congress, heaps of money, a popular agenda and energy at the grass roots. All this is arrayed against a Democratic incumbent dogged by character problems and hampered by a divided party.
But the Republicans are fretful. A sometimes sneering attitude toward Bill Clinton masks a fear that he might yet beat them. And he could - with their help. The most obvious danger is that voters might buy the Clinton argument that the Republicans are heedless of how many get hurt as they downsize government programs and benefits.
That concern connects directly with the choice of a Republican nominee - a harder problem than it appears. Front-runner Bob Dole's too old, say some in the party and so he himself has signaled in offering to settle for one term. If nominated at 72, the 24-year gap in age between him and Clinton could prove a big negative in a grueling campaign. Moreover, Dole's a back-room man with no record of interest in ideas or ability to sell them. There was something sad in his telling the Republican National Committee that ``I'm willing to be another Ronald Reagan if that's what you want.''
Naturally that's what they want, but can Dole fill the bill? His promise suggested he thinks it's a matter of echoing Reagan's positions, but condemning government is something that others - like Newt Gingrich and Phil Gramm - can do more convincingly.
What none of them can offer is Reagan's personal radiance and his ability to strike contradictory but appealing poses. Reagan quickened conservative hearts by pledges to reduce government and spending but did neither and kept on smiling. And he was forgiven acts that would have brought punishment upon other presidents.
Gingrich and Gramm personify intent to deliver on Reagan's promises, but in a movie with the Gipper they would appear as heavies. That goes for Dole, too. These men might mount a smile on cue, but that about does it in the meet-and-greet department. Personal chemistry, always important in politics, will become more so as people feel or fear the cost to them of smaller government.
It will be big news when one of the Republican leaders is able to release a poll showing he is preferred over an incumbent Democrat whose successes have been few and fleeting. Maybe, in Arthur Miller's phrase, they are liked but not well-liked.
Well into his third year as president, Bill Clinton hasn't improved much in popularity polls. Could he gain a precious point by doing something about his consistently wretched performance at table-pounding?
The president resorts to such when caught between the politically necessary and the politically hurtful. For example, he wanted Californians to know how it outraged him to have to agree to close military bases in a state poor in jobs and rich in electoral votes. So he marched up to a lectern, began to bad-mouth the base-closing commission and brought down his fist for emphasis.
Now everybody knows that when a presidential fist falls, it is supposed to give a sharp, cracking report of the sort that might cause a person dozing to come alert and look out a window for an imminent storm. But this president can't get the hang of it; when he pounds, the lectern microphone gives off a muffled boom accented by hollow spaces in the lectern itself - something like a boot falling on plywood when what's wanted is the sound of solid oak reverberating.
If the president really must depend on table-thumping for emphasis, can his aides not provide him a table? MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. by CNB