Life is complicated, and politics can be too. Shepherding legislation through Congress and manging a diverse political coalition are difficult undertakings that often require subtlety, indirection, even obfuscation. Those were the skills Bob Dole perfected in his years at the helm of the Senate. But some things are simple, even in politics. Presidential election campaigns are, at root, simple. It is Bob Dole’s task over the next three months to make the 1996 election a simple one, for simplicity is the route to victory.
The media and the intelligentsia abhor the kind of simplicity we’re talking about. Instead, they embrace complexity — a phony complexity that is often the sophist’s (or the devil’s) device to confuse the good and seduce the gullible. Indeed, phony complexity has become the stock in trade of contemporary liberalism. Liberals argue that welfare reform is very important — but of course no particular welfare reform is sufficiently nuanced and careful to earn their support. Liberals acknowledge that moral considerations are appropriate — but, they hasten to add, moralizing judgments are to be avoided. Shame is proper — but shaming any particular person or behavior is harsh and unfair. The era of big government is over — but adopting any measure that would actually lead to a smaller government would be simple- minded.
The phony complexity with which today’s liberalism disguises its bankruptcy has, of course, been taken to a new level by Bill Clinton. In 1992, when it looked as though there was a real chance and a coherent agenda to resuscitate liberalism, Clinton’s campaign was quite simple: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Four years later, with liberalism’s hopes in shambles, the Clinton presidency has built on the wreckage an extraordinary construct — replete with internal contradictions and continual triangulations. In a word, the world of Bill Clinton is a world of complexity.
That is why Bob Dole’s task over the next three months is to keep it simple. As Ronald Reagan loved to say, most important choices are simple, but that doesn’t mean they are easy. It does mean that conservatism is unafraid to advance some reasonably simple basic prescriptions for society’s ills. Obviously, intelligent conservatives are aware of all the difficulties and complications of political life; indeed, true conservatives still understand better than anyone else that social action has unforeseeable consequences. But conservatives know that underneath all the complications and difficulties are certain simple truths, truths that indicate the direction we ought to go. Setting a general course for the ship of state is fundamentally simple, even though figuring out how exactly to get to the destination can be complicated.
It is no accident, therefore, that conservatives tend to prevail when they succeed in posing the most straightforward choice they possibly can to the voters. It is no accident that liberals desperately try to avoid allowing the voters to see such a choice. Bob Dole has a chance this week to lay out, in a reasonable and straightforward way, the simple choice this November’s election offers. If he does so, and if he does it well, he can win. If, however, the whole election campaign over the next 12 weeks is conducted in a miasma of phony complexity — Bill Clinton’s natural element — then Dole will lose.
Dole can frame the campaign around three basic issues: money, morality, and manliness.
Money. As for money — in other words, taxes and the size of government — Dole got off to a good start last week. He must continue to pose the choice between Clinton and himself as follows: If you think the current level of taxation and the current size and scope of government are about right, vote for Clinton. If you think that we should pay less in the way of taxes and the government should spend less, vote for Dole. Simple. And true.
Morality. Dole needs to tell his fellow citizens that if they think 1.5 million abortions a year is fine, that racial preferences are just, and that all patterns of family life are morally equivalent, then they should vote for Clinton. If they want to reduce the number of abortions, treat individuals fairly, and believe in traditional morality, then they should vote for Dole. Simple. And true.
Manliness. Finally, Dole needs to present himself to the country — his virtues and his failings, his strengths and weaknesses, his struggle to overcome adversities — and ask the voters to contrast his character and leadership with Bill Clinton’s. Simple. And meaningful in ways that go beyond politics.
These are real contrasts, and they constitute a legitimate basis for a serious election campaign over the next three months. At the Republican convention on Thursday night, when Bob Dole delivers his acceptance speech, tens of millions of Americans will see him for the first time for more than just a few moments and will hear him for longer than a sound-bite. Dole should make his case straightforwardly and make the choice clear; he and his advisers should then be willing to brave the slings and arrows of all those in the media who will accuse them of being “simplistic.” If he does this, Dole can engage Clinton in the last great battle of his political life, crown himself with glory, and complete the Republican revolution that was begun with such breathtaking simplicity by Ronald Reagan in 1980.
