THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607260005
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Perry Morgan
LENGTH: 73 lines
Bob Dole by all accounts is, indeed, running like a dry creek. It is not surprising to hear Republicans exhort their prospective nominee to show some vision and stand forth as a leader or, as some counsel, fade away in favor of some other nominee as yet unnamed and unspotted.
But three questions occur: (1) Has Dole changed since he swept the GOP primaries? (2) Would a different nominee do better? (3) What is the nature of the vision that presumably is ripe and ready to burst from the lips of a better candidate?
Dole has not changed. A product of lonely places, he is not outgoing and has no ease with speech or gesture. He seems to loathe the bafflegab that gets most pols through tight places where he lodges. And he must rein a smoldering temper that scorched his earlier national campaigns. Verbal snafus likely will continue to beset him.
But Dole essentially is a moderate Main Street Republican with a keen sense of decency and fairness, a lot of sense and a distaste for absolutes. It is not correct to say that he won the crown simply by waiting in line. Party primaries offered a remarkable range of choice.
Voters could have opted for Malcolm (Taxes-Made-Easy) Forbes, chosen the righteous nativism of Pat Buchanan or gone for Phil Gramm, who presented himself as a foe of big government akin, say, to Newt Gingrich. In the person of Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, there was even opportunity to nominate an undisputed statesman.
As for Dole, he was as awkward then as now, sometimes speechless before audiences, but primary voters chose him. And since Dole has been around for decades while the GOP alternately has pushed social programs (the Nixon years) and condemned them (in current times), it may be assumed the choice was informed and meant something. Much of the grousing now is not because Dole is Dole but because so far he refuses to be Forbes or Buchanan.
Columnist Cal Thomas urges Dole to achieve greatness by quitting the race. He says some conservatives would rather lose, if they must, ``with someone who inspires more faith and trust then Dole.'' Very well. But Thomas, soured by Dole's toleration of opposing views on abortion, doesn't bother to name the exemplary person who should take Dole's place. Perhaps purity tests are pending. In any event, there is no majority for banning abortion nor is any such likely to be forged by politicians running upon their swords. Dole has severe problems as a campaigner but, in fairness, his party's charisma cupboard has been empty since Reagan returned to California.
As for the prospect of defeat, that was real enough before voters were reminded of Dole's penchant for bloopers. Gingrich and Co., heady with power, put a hard face on the so-called Republican revolution of 1994 that gave Republicans control of Congress. Often appearing to cut social programs more in anger than in sorrow, they made it easy for a befuddled Bill Clinton to come back yet again, changing policies as if they were costumes and ultimately stalling what appeared as a GOP breakthrough to political dominance.
Clinton was aided when members of the Gingrich group opened themselves to the charge that they intended to fund tax cuts for the better off with cuts in social spending. Dole had as little as possible to do with the Gingrich follies but is burdened by the bad reviews.
As for Dole's lack of vision, critics shouldn't fret. Something will come over the senator on the road to San Diego - probably a big tax cut togged out as a generator of jobs and all-round tonic for the economy. It seems to be part of the calculus of politics that one candidate or the other is going to make the tax-cut promise even if, as in Dole's case, he is a certified deficit hawk who fought the excesses of Reaganomics and has pledged himself to a balanced budget.
To be sure, the candidate is desperate for a theme, and nothing suits more Republicans most of the time than lower taxes. But if Dole tries to reconcile fiscal conservatism with a new round of Reaganomics, he may be up to his eyeballs in bloopers. As a financier observed in The Wall Street Journal recently: ``But for the interest on that added debt (of the Reagan-Bush years), the federal budget would be in substantial surplus today.'' MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB