THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 3, 1996 TAG: 9611020002
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: 62 lines
Polls to the contrary, the Good Ship Dole may not be sinking. And even if it is, there's a faint hope for deliverance; the captain remains on the bridge, carrying on. The worst news is that first-cabin passengers already have swum for shore where they mutter darkly about bad navigation.
Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, said Dole's campaign is ``certainly not the type of campaign I would have run.'' Malcolm Forbes, the flat-tax tycoon, spares Dole direct criticism but his smiles are grim. Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin says the Dole campaign is about as inept as George Bush's effort in 1992. Remarks like these doubtless discourage turnout and sting a weary Dole, but the ship-jumpers seem bent on getting clear of expected wreckage and filing early for salvage rights.
If his l988 bid for the Republican nomination (against Bush, Dole, Kemp and others ) is any indication, Pat Robertson certainly would have run a more interesting campaign than has Dole. In his first try for elective office, Robertson often was over the top. He talked of shutting down the government, rocking the Soviets back on their heels, slashing the deficit and getting long-gone missiles out of Cuba. He said George Bush was knowingly engaged in sleazy tricks to embarrass him, drawing from Barbara Bush a biting rejoinder. And he riled Ronald Reagan by suggesting his own cable network knew more about locating hostages in Beirut than the government.
Perhaps he was unsteady in a new arena and weary from the campaign grind. In any event, things didn't go well. After Robertson lost in New Hampshire, an aide said the Fat Lady hadn't sung and that she lived in the South which Robertson expected to sweep. But as Super Tuesday voting revealed, the Fat Lady, like a legion of whippoorwills, had been singing all over Dixie, including Virginia Beach where Robertson ran third. Robertson's great power in politics owes little to personal skills at waging public campaigns.
It is too easy to be too hard on Dole. The identity of a candidate who would have done better does not spring to mind. Faces emerge - Gingrich, Armey, Gramm, Buchanan - a gallery of scowls.
Moreover, the Dole campaign was undercut in advance by several events: (1) Congressional Republicans paved the way for Bill Clinton's ``Mediscare'' campaign by seeking to twin tax cuts for the better off with reductions in benefits for the poor and elderly. (2) The same folks assumed a government shutdown would bend Clinton to their will. (3) The Christian Coalition and other hard-working factions rejected Dole's necessary efforts to orient the party toward moderates and independents.
Dole, to be sure, had his own problems. In pursuit of party unity and a campaign theme, he threw over his reputation as a fiscal conservative and social moderate and thus went disarmed into his uncertain attack on Clinton's character.
But even if Dole had persisted in being Dole, all roads went uphill: He was a radio candidate in a television age asking voters to fire a president in a time of relative peace and prosperity. His opponent was a moving target, sipping from every philosophical flower and seizing as his own the results of every GOP initiative that scored well in the polls.
If Bill Clinton deserves to win, he does not deserve to win by much. He does deserve a close watch against additional cover-ups and further misuse of FBI powers and files. It's a pity that Republican factions gave more allegiance to their own dogmas than to their candidate's need to be himself and bring conviction to his words. MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB