Bob Dole can keep a secret. Until the day before he announced his resignation from the Senate on May 15, only five people knew of his decision- Dole, his wife Elizabeth, campaign manager Scott Reed, Republican national chairman Haley Barbour, and writer Mark Helprin. “In order to keep the secret, ” Dole told Republican senators at a luncheon following his announcement, “I naturally didn’t tell any senators.” They laughed uneasily.
The question is whether Dole can wage an effective national campaign against a formidable opponent. He’s never done it before. In 1980, his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination fell fiat. In 1988, he won Iowa, then collapsed as George Bush grabbed the nomination. This year, he defeated a batch of weak Republican foes in unimpressive fashion. That made him the presumptive nominee. But matched against President Clinton this spring, he steadily lost ground. Dole thought he’d begun to recover by early May, when he began talking about liberal judges and repeal of Clinton’s gas-tax increase. But demoralized Republicans felt no better.
Now born again, Dole has one final chance to prove himself nationally. And this time, he has a model: the Bush campaign in 1988. Bush created his own issues against Democrat Michael Dukakis — the Pledge of Allegiance, Willie Horton, Dukakis’s ACLU membership — that the media and much of the Republican establishment loathed. Nevertheless, says Reed, “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” A half-dozen conservative issues have been chosen: a tax cut, ending affirmative action, opposition to gay marriage, cutting wasteful spending, real welfare reform, and crime. “That’s the package,” according to Reed.
Dole has roughly two months to flesh out these issues and draw sharp contrasts with Clinton. If he hasn’t gotten his message through to voters by mid-July, he’s probably a goner. The Atlanta Olympic games begin then, and they’re sure to drown out politics. August will be devoted to the conventions, and Dole needs the Republican gathering to be a coronation of himself and his vice-presidential running mate, not a vehicle for issue development. And when the conventions are over, it’s Labor Day. The shape of a presidential race rarely changes after that.
The good news is that Dole has made serious preparations to trumpet his issues. The most important is cutting taxes. That’s the issue that brings the Republican base together, everyone from religious conservatives to pro-choice moderates. Of course, the conventional wisdom in Washington is that Dole, as an austerity Republican devoted chiefly to balancing the federal budget, can’t comfortably embrace a big cut in individual income tax rates. But neither Dole nor his advisers agree with that. So developing a proposal for slashing taxes has moved ahead on two fronts.
The first is the campaign staff. Reed strongly favors a large tax cut, and he’s met with Steve Forbes, Jack Kemp, and other supply-siders to discuss the subject. Also, Robert Lighthizer, a Washington attorney and ex-Dole aide, has put together a team of experts on economic matters. They’ve developed revenue estimates of the impact of a 15 percent across-the-board cut in individual rates. Lighthizer, while no friend of supply-siders, likes this proposal as part of a bigger economic plan to spur economic growth.
The same 15 percent cut was outlined by GOP senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan to a separate group of economists who met with Dole in early May. Initial reports suggested the economists were cool to the idea. But John Taylor of Stanford University, who headed the economic group, certainly wasn’t. Nor was Gary Becker of the University of Chicago, who’s said publicly he’s for reductions in marginal rates. Even Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, the former head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, isn’t hostile. Taylor is assigned to report back to Dole with a tax-cut proposal by late May.
A specific proposal is all Dole needs. He’s insisted all along he wants to cut taxes. In his only major economic address as a candidate, Dole said last September he wants “a sweeping, pro-growth tax reform” that includes “lower and flatter rates.” And in his new stump speech, Dole harps on the tax issue: “With no need for yet another election-year conversion, what new taxes would Bill Clinton suddenly find unavoidable?” Dole says he wants to repeal the gas- tax hike now. “And then, in November, let’s repeal the administration that gave us, not just the gas tax, but the largest tax increase in history,” he adds.
Gay marriage and affirmative action are touchier issues for Dole. He’s co- sponsor of legislation allowing states to ban same-sex marriage, but he’s never released a written statement or made public comments on the subject. Nor is there a speech in the works on gay marriage. But William Bennett suggested to Reed on May 8 a way for Dole to express his opposition. Dole could express mock exasperation, Bennett said: “I don’t get this [gay marriage]. Maybe I’m too old. Maybe I’m a fossil. Maybe I come from too small a town.” Bennett argued Dole should give a speech on this subject soon.
Dole has a speech already drafted attacking race and gender preferences used by the federal government. He was set to give it weeks ago. But his prepared text kept slipping off the podium, so he spoke off the cuff instead. Now, Dole has given up what may be his best platform for attacking affirmative action, the Senate floor. Dole was sponsor of a bill to outlaw affirmative action. As majority leader, he could bring it to the floor when he pleased. Now he can’t. His advisers are looking for a suitable spot for an anti-affirmative-action speech.
What’s good politically for Dole about proposing a big tax cut, opposing affirmative action, and barring gay marriage is that Clinton can’t co-opt these issues. His liberal base would rebel. True, the president has said he’s against same-sex marriage. But he’s refused to say if he’d sign legislation giving states the right to block it.
Dole’s other three issues — welfare reform, spending, crime — are hardly off limits to Clinton. The president has his own welfare plan, has proposed some spending curbs, and touts his record as a crime fighter. Still, Dole thinks there are grounds for drawing distinctions. He intends to question Clinton’s credibility on welfare reform (the president vetoed the GOP budget that included it). On spending, he’ll argue that Clinton is a phony, talking conservative while governing as “the rear guard of big government.” On crime, Dole thinks his focus on liberal judges is productive.
There’s a case to be made on all these issues, but Dole has to make it forcefully, interestingly, and repeatedly. That won’t be easy. He’s never been a compelling speaker. He’ll need a lot of help from his staff in putting his issues across. They’ll need to draft provocative speeches and find telegenic settings for Dole to deliver them. They’ll need to improve their often amateurish advance work. And they’ll have to develop a team to deliver quick responses to Clinton and another to coordinate Republican attacks on the president. “Those things haven’t come together as they should have,” complains a Dole adviser.
But they’ve made a start. When Lighthizer heard Clinton was inviting scores of CEOs to the White House on May 16 to talk about corporate responsibility, he sent a memo to the campaign staff. The Dole campaign should respond, he said, noting that instead of yakking with CEOs, Clinton ought to be working to cause faster economic growth, perhaps by cutting taxes. Lighthizer got no response. So he sent another memo. It worked. The campaign put out a statement zinging Clinton.
By Fred Barnes
