It ain’t over.
I wish it were. As I write, on Friday, October 13, after the second presidential debate and before the third, George W. Bush seems to hold a small lead over Al Gore. I’ve already voted for Bush by absentee ballot in Virginia. I wish all my fellow Americans could also vote this weekend, under the influence of Bush’s competent performance Wednesday night and Gore’s lackluster one. But, unfortunately, there are three weeks and one debate left.
More important, real things are happening in real time in the real world that could very much affect the outcome of this election. The Arab-Israeli conflict, the terrorist attack on the American ship in Aden, the rise in oil prices, nervousness in the stock market — all these things introduce further volatility into what has already been an unpredictable campaign. The candidates will have to react to these events, and their reactions will be more newsworthy than the choreographed speeches and prepared position papers that campaign organizations are fond of.
What this means is that it’s going to be difficult for the Bush campaign to sit on the ball and run out the clock. It will be particularly difficult if Gore decides to throw a long ball or two. If it’s clear Gore really is behind by Tuesday night’s debate, then the Bush campaign should, I think, expect a surprise from Gore. Whatever one thinks of Gore — and the editors of this magazine have made no secret of our rather low opinion of him — he is capable of being a bold and ruthless politician.
What might Gore try Tuesday night? Given the news, foreign policy is the obvious place for him to try to put Bush on the defensive, both in terms of policy and competence. In the second debate, Bush wisely shied away from the neo-isolationism of congressional Republicans. Indeed, he went out of his way to mute differences with the Clinton-Gore administration as much as possible. And, in terms of competence, Bush was well enough prepared that Gore did not appear appreciably better informed or in possession of more reliable judgment.
How could Gore disrupt this situation of equipoise that benefits Bush? Here’s one possibility. Gore could break with President Clinton on the Middle East by declaring that the United States had gone as far as it could in playing the role of “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians. Gore could argue — correctly, we think — that whatever the merits of the Clinton administration’s past attempts to broker a peace process, events of the last two weeks have made it important for the United States to stand unambiguously with its democratic ally Israel, and for the United States to begin to hold Arab leaders like Chairman Arafat and Egypt’s President Mubarak accountable for their unwillingness to be partners in peace. Gore might suggest the possibility of reducing U.S. aid to Egypt or to the Palestinian authority. He could embrace the argument made so eloquently and forcibly by Natan Sharansky last week that U.S. policy towards Arab dictators needs to be fundamentally rethought, that Arabs no less than Serbs or South Koreans deserve democracy. In other words, Gore could adopt a Scoop Jackson position on the Middle East, a position he has inclined towards in the past and which close advisers ranging from Joe Lieberman to Marty Peretz would be happy to help him articulate.
Perhaps all this wouldn’t matter much. Most Americans aren’t experts on Middle East policy, and it’s not even clear that being “pro-Israel” is more popular than “evenhandedness.” But if Gore took such a tack — and I believe it is under consideration in Gore headquarters — it would do four things. First it would throw something unexpected at Bush, who would have to react and presumably engage in a real debate on Middle East policy, putting Bush into relatively uncharted waters with the possibility of errors and statements that are not well thought through. Second, it could broaden into a larger foreign policy debate on America’s role in the world, where we suspect that Gore’s embrace of aggressive American leadership, including moral leadership, might prove politically attractive by contrast with Bush’s bring-the-troops-home “realism.” Third, it would bring foreign policy front and center in the campaign, and therefore the question of who is better prepared to be commander in chief, which presumably would help Gore, especially if he can outduel Bush on that front Tuesday night. And last, it would decouple Gore from Clinton in a bold way.
Surely it is no accident that Gore’s best weeks of the campaign came after he picked Lieberman, kissed his wife, and, so to speak, ditched Clinton at the Democratic convention. Conversely, Bush has regained the lead from Gore as questions about Gore’s character have come back to the fore. Those questions revolve around whether Gore will do or say anything to win, and around the vanity or unnatural self-regard that impels Gore repeatedly to let loose with boastful and self-aggrandizing exaggerations (not just get “some of the details wrong,” as he likes to say). In other words, Bush has benefited when electing Gore has seemed to mean a continuation of the unattractive aspects of the last eight years of Bill Clinton.
Yet despite Gore’s manifest flaws, Bush has not closed the sale. The sudden eventfulness of October has raised the stakes and will place a premium on the flexibility of the two campaign organizations and the quick reflexes of the candidates.
Gore may, in the end, prove too cautious to try to turn the shifting sands of Middle East policy into a political trap for Bush. It would nonetheless be wise for the Bush campaign to be prepared, both technically and substantively, for this kind of October surprise. Gore will not go down without a fight. Bush needs to be ready to fight back. And sometimes the best way to fight back is not to wait for your opponent to strike first.
William Kristol
