WHEN WASHINGTON ATTORNEY Robert Lighthizer, a former Senate aide of Bob Dole and now a senior adviser, returned from New Hampshire the day after the February 20 primary, he got an earful. On the plane, Lighthizer encountered Bay Buchanan, manager of her brother Pat’s presidential campaign. She insisted Dole is making an awful mistake by attacking Pat Buchanan as an extremist. It’s suicidal. Dole might win the Republican presidential nomination with that tactic, but he’s jeopardizing his chances of defeating President Clinton. He’s alienating both Buchanan and his followers, who constitute one quarter to one third of the GOP electorate. If Dole is the nominee — and despite losing in New Hampshire, he is the frontrunner — Dole will desperately need them in the fall. Later that day, Lighthizer sent a memo to Dole, urging him to stop calling Buchanan an extremist.
Good advice. And for the moment, Dole took it. But his tendency is still to demonize Buchanan, though in milder terms, rather than concentrate on combating his ideas on trade, the economy, immigration, and America’s role in the world. Dole did this implicitly after dropping the “extremist” stuff. ” Bob Dole is not some kind of fringe candidate,” Dole declared. “If you want a polarizer, I’m not your candidate.” Well, guess who is? Dole didn’t have to say. And guess who’s not the candidate from “the mainstream”? And who might ” take the Republican party over the cliff”? And who believes in “intolerance in America”?
Buchanan hardly deserves a free pass. Sharp criticism of his occasionally wild statements and wrong-headed policy ideas is warranted. The trick is doing it in a way that treats him and especially his followers with respect. Dole (or Lamar Alexander if he wins the nomination) must assimilate them in the Republican party, not ostracize them. Like it or not, they’re now a major force and so is Buchanan, their leader. True, Buchanan isn’t likely to win the nomination. But he’ll have enough delegates to play a big role at the GOP convention in August. Dole and the Republican establishment can either accommodate him in the platform, the convention speeches, even in choosing a vice presidential nominee — or else. The alternative is a poisonous convention, a split in the party, and the reelection of Bill Clinton.
Holding the Buchanan brigades won’t be easy. Buchanan may be the Jesse Jackson of the GOP, but his followers are not like Jesse’s. The Jackson constituency is largely black, and for decades black voters have been reliable Democrats. Buchanan attracts people from outside GOP ranks: independents, Perotistas, conservative Democrats. Not only are many of them lukewarm about the Republican party, they don’t resemble regular Republicans in income level, demeanor, or dress. Buchananites look like they just came from the bowling league or Pentecostal church social. They’re folks for whom Dole has little appeal. So unless they (and Buchanan) are treated well, they’ll abandon the Republican party in a heartbeat.
Fortunately, Lighthizer isn’t the only Dole adviser who believes attacks on Buchanan as beyond the political pale are counterproductive. Conservative activists Donald Devine and David Keene have urged Dole to soften his rhetoric. Some Dole campaign staffers agree. Media consultant Don Sippie suggested that the Dole TV ad in New Hampshire zinging Buchanan as an extremist was unhelpful and would not be repeated. “Been there, done that,” Sipple said. Dole himself seemed uncomfortable with the effort to isolate Buchanan. When Buchanan confronted him about the TV spot in a New Hampshire debate on February 15, Dole became defensive and never fully recovered. He skipped the next televised debate in Tempe, Arizona, a week later.
The TV ad was aired after Dole narrowly topped Buchanan in the Iowa caucuses on February 12. It cited two items from Buchanan’s old newspaper column and concluded: “He’s too extreme and he can’t beat Bill Clinton.” The Dole campaign dropped the ad after two days, but Dole revived the theme the morning after the New Hampshire primary. “This now is a race between the mainstream and the extreme,” Dole said. “I’m the mainstream conservative. I know [Buchanan] appeals to the fears in people, he plays on the fears of people. I want to appeal to their hopes.” This infuriated Buchanan. He said ” his movement and his people” will find it difficult to back any “name-caller” like Dole. Calling a conservative an extremist also “drives every conservative activist up the wall,” says Jeffrey Bell, a Republican strategist who’s friendly with the Dole campaign.
The tactic isn’t new. President Gerald Ford used it against Ronald Reagan in 1976, with dire results. “Governor Reagan couldn’t start a war,” a Ford ad blared. “President Reagan can.” Ford also accused Reagan of wanting to dismantle Social Security. In the short run, the tactic worked; Ford won the nomination. But he alienated Reagan, who refused to be considered as Ford’s running mate. (Reagan said, however, that Dole was acceptable, and Dole was selected.) Worse, Reagan did little to keep the newcomers he’d attracted in the Republican fold. He campaigned only sparingly for Ford in the fall. ” There were a lot of hard feelings,” recalls Bell, a Reagan staffer in 1976.
Like Jackson, Buchanan makes normal civilities diffcult. His anti- establishment rhetoric is often sweeping. It’s one thing to criticize his presidential rivals. It’s another to dismiss the entire Republican Congress as a tool of Fortune 500 corporations and K Street lobbyists. Yet that is Buchanan’s line, one he espoused again in the Arizona debate. It puts him at odds with virtually the whole Republican party.
It doesn’t mean he’s bound to bolt if he doesn’t get the nomination. Jackson didn’t in 1984. Walter Mondale made sure of that. After losing the New Hampshire primary to Gary Hart, Mondale called Hart and sought to keep their disagreements within bounds. And he sent his campaign manager, Bob Beckel, to confer endlessly with Jackson. Mondale had to make concessions on the platform and give Jackson a primetime spot for a convention speech. But all that worked. The Democratic party remained unified. Sure, Mondale lost in a landslide to Reagan, but that was for other reasons. There’s a lesson for Bob Dole in the Mondale approach. He’d better heed it.
by Fred Barnes
