Special Correspondence/Bush-Bashing
Bakshian, Aram Jr.
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE BUSH-BASHING by Aram Bakshian, Jr. o ne of the most disappointing things about that sometimes puzzling phenomenon called the conservative movement is the jellyfish way it...
...Then, for good measure, Mr...
...My own view, and I suspect it is shared by most Republicans, many independents, and probably a majority of American conservatives, is that Messrs...
...The water may not be fine, but it's the only navigable route to the presidency and the political realignment to which you, like the rest of us in the conservative movement, are passionately committed...
...As the Reagan Administration fights the undertow of Irangate, and as the fishing fleet for the 1988 GOP nomination gets under way, many of my fellow conservatives are again indulging this lamentably coelenterate tendency toward stinging fragmentation...
...Goodbar at a sleazy singles bar...
...Bethell's rather touching faith that "Kemp would defeat any Democrat in the general election . ." A s a conservative Republican myself, I see no ideal candidate on the horizon...
...Bethell and the rest of the relatively small band of Kemp partisans to concentrate on selling their candidate to a so-far unresponsive electorate (something they have shown little aptitude for), instead of engaging in vitriolic attacks on more successful rivals...
...poetic about Rep...
...Jack Kemp, for all of his repeated pounding of pet themes (only the late, unlamented Gary Hart-pence had a larger larder of "new ideas," and he has long since vanished from the political scene in a cloud of cheesecake), seems no closer to the nomination today than he was eight years ago...
...Come out of the Siamese Jellyfish tank, Tom Bethell, and get back into the political mainstream...
...You're usually better off if your dream doesn't come true...
...The bottom line question, and answering it need not involve badmouthing any of the credible GOP contenders, is which among them is most likely to carry on the far from finished business of the Reagan-GOP agenda...
...He has many ideas, some of which are good and all of which deserve a serious hearing...
...Nor does the fact that Rep...
...Kemp performs dismally when matched against potential Democratic rivals in polls of the general electorate reduce Mr...
...1=1 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 29...
...Having vented his spleen and, in the process, having written off the two men whose combined support represents an overwhelming majority within GOP grassroots ranks, Mr...
...Dream candidates, after all, are the stuff that political pipe dreams, not real-life political realignments, are made of...
...It is grounds for Mr...
...After dismissing President Ronald Reagan as an amiable but mindless dupe in the hands of the American business community, the Republican "country club set," and the liberal media establishment, he proceeded to savage the President's heir presumptive, Vice President George Bush, branding him a feeble pawn incapable of being elected...
...To add to the aquatic analogy, the behavior of some of them also bears a morbid resemblance to that of Siamese fighting fish, those colorful, scrappy little creatures who reserve their best efforts for killing or maiming each other, rather than taking on enemy species...
...It would also be a nice soupcon if the candidate we ultimate-ly choose is strongly qualified on the basis of experience, judgment, maturity, and a reasoned sense of national priorities, with a minimum of crank notions either unacceptable to, or of little interest to, the electorate (e.g., a return to the gold standard, empty blustering against South Africa, rhetorical courting of hostile blocs of the electorate without any prospect of winning their votes, or generally preaching to a small choir over the heads of the general electorate...
...Today, more than ever, too many conservatives who ought to know better have fallen victim to what, for brevity's sake, might be called the Siamese Jellyfish Syndrome...
...This is especially true of those who, like Vice President Bush, have loyally supported the Reagan agenda and demonstrated their ability to attract continued support for it, as well as their own candidacies...
...Bethell denounced the only other contender for the Republican presidential nomination with more than minuscule popular support, Senate Republican leader Robert Dole, as a man with no ideological compass who "cannot be trusted...
...To borrow a phrase from Mr...
...Jack Kemp...
...Expecting a perfect ideological fit (which usually means a politically crippling straitjacket) when it comes to party nominees makes about as much sense as waiting for Mr...
...In an uncharacteristically bilious piece, published in this magazine last month ("Conservative Bird, Liberal Bush"), Tom Bethell, a usually reasoned and articulate advocate of conservative principles, dived into the Siamese Jellyfish tank with a resounding bellyflop...
...T his is not grounds for writing off 1 Jack Kemp...
...There are a number of pluses and minuses to all of the current contenders for the GOP nomination...
...o ne of the most disappointing things about that sometimes puzzling phenomenon called the conservative movement is the jellyfish way it has of breaking up into sticky, disagreeable bits of astringent gunk just when it seems on the verge of forming an effective, cohesive mass...
...This, in turn, can only be done by the candidate or candidates capable of holding together enough of the fluid coalition of regular GOP voters, Southern and Southwestern Democrats, and blue-collar and independent moderates and conservatives that swept Ronald Reagan into office in 1980 and again in 1984...
...Bethell, it is the Kemp candidacy, far more than the Bush or Dole candidacies, that is an "inside the Beltway" phenomenon, the parochial preserve of a small band of professional ideologues, most of them based in Washington, which has yet to generate any substantial support at the grassroots level...
...The fact that Jack Kemp, who has been in hot pursuit of the 1988 nomination for nearly eight years now, still has trouble winning much more than single-digit support among Republican voters (even General Haig, whom hardly anyone takes seriously, does better than Jack Kemp) fails to dampen his ardor...
...Bethell waxed Aram Bakshian, Jr., a former aide to President Reagan, writes and broadcasts frequently on politics, history, and the arts...
...Bush and Dole (as well as several minor candidates including Jack Kemp) could all be supported in good conscience against anyone the Democratic party is likely to throw at us in 1988...
...Kemp, he told us, is a candidate "brimming over with ideas" who "alone among the Republican candidates would bring about the long-delayed realignment of the party...
...So far, George Bush and Bob Dole have demonstrated the best potential for doing this...
Vol. 20 • September 1987 • No. 9
