YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO HEAR about this, and I don’t blame you, but Lamar Alexander was in Washington last week, less than two weeks after Election Day. The former governor and presidential candidate was making the rounds, giving speeches, granting interviews, meeting with former and future political and financial supporters. What he was doing, in other words, was running for president. And he is not alone. Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle, Jack Kemp, Phil Gramm, and others are gearing up, dipping their toes in the water, sniffing the winds, preparing their hats to toss in the ring, and causing a trainwreck, a tornado, of mixed metaphors. They’re not giving themselves a break, and worse, they’re not giving us a break, either. You might say that the race is on even before Bob Dole’s body is cold, except Bob Dole’s body was never warm.
Normal people may think Election Day was twenty days ago, but for the presidential professional Election Day is actually 1,400 days from now. There is no time to waste. Within days of Dole’s defeat Phil Gramm was making calls to supporters in Iowa — “just checking in,” as one put it — and to “money men” throughout the South. Steve Forbes was launching a new “message tank,” as opposed to think tank, called “Americans for [prepare yourself] Hope, Growth and Opportunity.” Dan Quayle was hosting an evening reception in Washington for House Republican freshmen and sophomores to talk about, you know, the congressional agenda.
