THERE’S A THRILL GAP IN THE REPUBLICAN presidential race. Bob Dole and Lamar Alexander attract plenty of press but not many voters excited to see and hear them. Dole took no chances on the day of the Iowa caucuses. He spoke to captive audiences at two insurance companies. Still, the crowds sat on their hands during Dole’s speeches. The day before, Dole had brought young people in from Kansas and Ohio to pad his crowds. Alexander spoke to a modest crowd in Des Moines on the eve of the caucuses, stirring it more with his piano playing than his message. A University of Iowa professor, Arthur Miller, tracked expected caucus participants and found many were too unmotivated to vote. This was especially true among those inclined to support Dole. Small wonder, then, that fewer than 20 percent of registered Republicans bothered to vote, a turnout far short of expectations and even below the turnout in 1988.
The conventional explanation is that negative advertising, particularly by Steve Forbes, turned people off. And attack ads may indeed have played a small part. But the larger reason for voter apathy is that Dole and Alexander, the candidates with the best chance of winning the GOP nomination, have almost nothing compelling to say. Dole’s standard speech is largely biographical, focusing on the notion that as a World War II vet he has “one last mission” — to capture the White House. Alexander emphasizes process over substance. His opening statement in the TV debate in New Hampshire on February 15 jabbed at Dole for airing negative TV spots. In his opener, Dole boasted he’d kept the New Hampshire primary “first in the nation,” then blamed Alexander for going negative first. Great, but my question is: Where’s the beef?
You’d think Dole and Alexander would notice the enthusiastic crowds Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes attract and ask why. The answer is Buchanan and Keyes say something. They diagnose America’s problems and offer solutions. This has put Buchanan in real contention for the nomination. But getting Dole and Alexander to play up substance is almost impossible. True, they had to deal with significant issues in the New Hampshire debate. The moderators forced them to. So Dole argued about trade with Buchanan. And Alexander succinctly outlined his plans for reforming Social Security and stemming illegal immigration. But left to their own devices, Dole and Alexander veer to the trivial.
Dole’s advisers aren’t to blame. They’ve lobbied for months for him to talk more substantively. Vin Weber, the campaign co-chairman, believes a strong stump message could be developed by combining segments from serious speeches Dole gave in recent years. Robert Lighthizer, a Washington attorney and former Dole aide in the Senate, has pressed Dole to focus on wage stagnation and the loss of manufacturing jobs — in other words, the middle-class squeeze. Campaign manager Scott Reed has asked outside advisers to suggest a broader Dole strategy.
One of them, David Smick, an ex-aide to Jack Kemp, backed Lighthizer’s approach, contending the country has been divided into “two Americas” under President Clinton, investors who’ve done fabulously well and wage earners whose take-home pay has declined. By attacking Clinton on the economy, Lighthizer and Smick think, Dole can revive the role he played in 1993 and 1994 as the chief Republican point man in the substantive fight against the president.
But Dole has resisted this advice. “He’s uncomfortable waging the campaign on substance,” says a Dole strategist. “He hates it when people talk about the vision thing. He thinks it’s faddish.” After his embarrassingly narrow victory in Iowa, however, Dole relented. In New Hampshire, he spoke on a different issue each day, but just barely. His speech to the New Hampshire legislature on February 13 contained only one paragraph on declining wages. And his foreign policy speech the next day, an impressive putdown of isolationism, was drowned out by his negative ads on Buchanan. Weber and others insisted the ads would be counterproductive, but Dole Senate aide Sheila Burke, pollster Bill McInturff, and deputy campaign manager Bill Lacy prevailed.
Like Dole, Alexander has plenty of substantive beef, most of it hidden. Instead, he emphasizes process (term limits, killing the Department of Education) and gimmicks. His latest is a pair of knee-high boots he brings out to show his supposed distaste for negative campaigning. This tactic, proposed by Alexander’s clever strategist, Mike Murphy, may have aided him in Iowa, and it may help in New Hampshire. But it also distracts Alexander from saying much that matters. And it’s hypocritical. Alexander has done plenty of attacking himself. Then there’s the plaid shirt and the acronym ABC, ” Alexander beats Clinton.” He does? Says who? The constant repetition of ABC is annoying.
As a self-styled outsider, Alexander has an additional burden: He must prove he’s a serious player, not just an ambitious jobseeker. Buchanan has managed this by talking specifically (and endlessly) about the two overriding issues of the campaign, the economy and the nation’s moral ills. Alexander can do the same merely by playing up positions he’s already taken. Some of them are surprisingly bold, like his plan to turn over to “charity banks” at the local level the $ 50 billion Washington spends annually on welfare. This is radical devolution. By emphasizing it and other fresh ideas, Alexander may also prove he’s really the conservative he claims to be and not the moderate he was in the nobso-distant past. He might even thrill someone.
by Fred Barnes
