Bob Dole seems to be working overtime to recruit Colin Powell as his running mate. For example, Dole commented last week that he has asked his vice-presidential search team to look for candidates “outside of politics.” More telling (and disturbing), Dole has stopped talking about racial preferences on the campaign trail, despite his earlier sponsorship of legislation designed to do away with them in federal programs.
Dole now does not mention the issue at all in his stump speeches. And he conspicuously refused to mention the California Civil Rights Initiative– which he vigorously endorsed only a few months ago–in California last week. CCRI is the landmark effort seeking to end racial preferences on the part of California state government, and it is popular in polls; it should win in November, and its potential for framing the debate in a way useful to Dole has been thought to offer Dole a real shot at winning California.
Even so, former governor George Deukmejian, who was along with Dole for the ride last week, dismissed CCRI as “not helpful.” Deukmejian is close to Dole and very close to Ken Khachigian, Dole’s new California campaign director. Insiders ascribe the campaign’s sudden disdain for CCRI to Dole’s desire to persuade Powell to join him on the ticket. In a recent Bowie State University commencement address, Powell strongly defended affirmative-action programs and explicitly attacked CCRI as a “misguided” effort that “poses as an Equal Opportunity Initiative, but . . . puts at risk every outreach program . . . and puts the brakes on expanding opportunities for people who are in need.”
Dole apparently hopes to overcome Powell’s reticence about the vice presidency by dropping racial preferences from his campaign.
Dole confirmed late last week that he intends to meet privately with Powell soon after departing the Senate at the end of this week. Sources high in the Republican campaign say Dole is convinced Powell has not truly ruled out being on the ticket–especially if the themes of the Dole campaign are ones Powell is comfortable with.
So there may be a better chance of a Dole-Powell ticket than people thought- -a ticket that does better in polls than any other. The bad news, though, is that such a ticket might run a campaign that does not have much that is distinctively Republican or conservative about it. Even the most fervent Republican would have to wonder whether it is worth winning if the price of victory is the abandonment of an issue as central to conservative principle as the end of racial preferences. What would this say about a Dole-Powell administration?
