THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608170021
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: 58 lines
Bob Dole is doing better. Making a chancy choice of Jack Kemp as running mate, sauntering away from the party platform, bringing Colin Powell center stage and scripting most words spoken at the GOP convention, Dole got the big-tent image he wanted for his party. And for himself, a good launch.
This took some doing. On convention eve, lagging sadly in the polls, Dole reinvented himself. When he announced an economic scheme pledging $548 billion in tax cuts, the deficit hawk became a dove and shelved his lifelong history of fiscal responsibility.
The new mode is Reagan-style riverboat gambling. Dole's conversion was underlined by the choice of Kemp, a true believer in ``supply-side economics'' that Dole through thick and thin has derided. In other days he also derided Kemp and others who insist that economic growth sufficiently makes up for revenue lost by tax cuts.
The garrulous Kemp can preach that iffy point as gospel from dawn to dusk, and will, but Dole likely will keep his hand off the Bible. Said Dole in 1988: ``The good news is that a busload of supply-side economists just drove off the mountainside. The bad news is that three seats were empty.''
Dole's somersault makes tactical sense. His campaign, which had no message or momentum, now has Ronald Reagan's message - lower taxes, less government and a rhetoric of optimism. In talk of ``change,'' the plight of the middle class and the promise of tax relief, there also are echoes of another successful candidate, Bill Clinton.
But what is left of the steadfast Dole, the pay-the-bills conservative who fought to stem the Reagan tide of red ink, and stood foursquare for a balanced-budget amendment?
There's not enough left to contrast vividly with Clinton's philosophical slipperiness. Regarding only short-term deficit reduction, the president has been steady; were it not for interest on that portion of the national debt run up by Reagan and Bush, the budget would be in surplus.
Of course, Dole says not to worry; he's still for a balanced budget. He assures us that lost tax revenues not offset by growth would be made up by reduced spending, the details of which he is too shy to reveal. But even at the height of his popularity, Reagan never risked an ounce for a balanced budget or dispensed, on his own initiative, with a single significant spending program. This has point because months ago Dole blurted to an audience that ``I'll be Reagan if that's what you want.''
So it has turned out, and so the national will to curb deficit spending has been undermined yet again. Clinton led the way by crying havoc when Republicans sought to slow spending on Medicare, a major entitlement. Now comes Dole finding footing for his campaign with still another version of the free lunch. And where is Ross Perot when he's needed to point out the consequences of a ravenous national debt? The Texan is messing around, marginalized as maximum leader of a ``reform party'' that seems to have no identity other than his own peculiarity.
Despite the bad fit of his new supply-side suit, Dole has posed a stiff challenge to Clinton and that is to be a champion of something he believes in and to make it plain that the belief is not cribbed or copied or seized for the moment. Dole had his moment and caved. Will Clinton be more convincing? MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB