Politics: The Chairmen's Candidates
Norquist, Grover G.
POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist The Chairmen's Candidates I n mid-April, Republican state chairmen met in historic Williamsburg, Virginia. In a press conference with Jim Nicholson, chairman of the...
...Bauer not only opposes Reagan's free-trade policies, but he's the sole GOP contender opposed to reforming Social Security by giving all Americans an opportunity to have portable individual retirement accounts...
...John McCain of Arizona is running for president as if the New York Times editorial board had a vote in the New Hampshire primary...
...In the first quarter of 1999 Bush's exploratory committee (he has yet to formally announce) raised $7.6 million, and it has $6.7 million in cash on hand...
...John Kasich led the fight in Congress for a ten-percent, across-the-board tax cut...
...When George W. Bush, in declaring his opposition to abortion, noted that the Human Life Amendment does not have enough support to win two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the 5o state legislatures, he was criticized by Focus on the Family's James Dobson...
...In the same period Gore, with only one competitor for Democratic cash, raised $8.8 million and now has $6.8 million on hand...
...When the smoke clears and a Republican nominee emerges in the first part of next year, the winning campaign will undertake some serious polling and focus group research...
...Mrs...
...Unlike the days of William McKinley a century ago, today farmers and businessmen alike support free trade...
...Forbes didn't win the 1996 nomination, but he convinced many Republicans that the flat tax and privatization were fit for polite company...
...Dole in the teens and the other five candidates in single digits...
...They all support a strong defense, free trade, lower taxes, eliminating the death tax, school choice, tort reform, reforming Social Security with personal savings accounts, reductions in spending, more power to the states, and a supermajority requirement to raise taxes...
...Of even greater concern to Republican officials, McCain co-sponsored campaign finance "reform" that would cripple GOP fundraising while leaving Big Labor free to spend compulsory union dues on politics...
...Smithis known as a strong pro-life advocate, but he has also been the lead sponsor of legislation to permanently prohibit taxing the Internet...
...The flat tax was presumed to fly against voters' populist impulses...
...The same poll showed Elizabeth Dole defeating Gore by 51-43...
...11 of the above candidates are running squarely in the Reagan A Republican consensus...
...If it doesn't, then the nominee will choose a vice president from an electoral vote-rich state: Gov...
...Paradoxically, Forbes's success in converting the entire Republican Party to his issues means those issues are no longer exclusively his...
...In past elections the Republican nominee would start well behind as a result of the Democratic Party's advantage in registered voters...
...60 June 1999 • The American Spectator has proposed a very Reaganesque 3o-percent across-the-board income tax rate cut, and wants to abolish the inheritance tax...
...Steve Forbes's ability to finance his own campaign (he spent S38 million in 1996), the 50-state network of supporters he built up last time, and non-stop party activity on his part since 1996 all mean he can stay in the nomination race as long as he wants...
...If Kosovo becomes a second Somalia, McCain's endorsement of sending in American ground troops will allow the establishment press to brand Kosovo a bipartisan fiasco...
...Actually, Reagan's commandment has always been a little suspect...
...Quayle raised $2.1 million in the first quarter of this year and has S5oo,000 on hand...
...She's running for vice president...
...That's no consolation to Gore, who's been a household name for years...
...The American Spectator June 1999 61...
...usually argue—correctly—that these first polls are driven largely by name identification...
...Buchanan opposes free trade and has specifically trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Reagan first proposed in the speech in which he announced for the presidency in 1980...
...Before McCain's cheerleading for troops it was Clinton's war...
...Dole enjoys a 74-13 favorable to unfavorable rating, according to the April 13-14 CNN/USA Today poll...
...It's too late to offer this advice now, but many think Quayle should have gone back to Indiana, run for governor, and proved his detractors wrong through strong executive leadership...
...And the GOP's state party chairmen fervently hope each contender aims his hardest blows at the Democrats rather than his fellow Reaganites...
...Since then the GOP has gone on record for some version of the flat tax and most every Republican now favors moving Social Security from the present Ponzi scheme to a fully-funded, individually-held retirement system...
...Buchanan's and Bauer's anti-business and anti-trade positions do not represent even a faction of the Republican Party...
...He came close in 1996 without making enemies...
...The man who pronounced it had himself challenged a sitting Republican president in 1976, and he coined it when—conveniently—he was already front-runner for the 1980 nomination...
...Term limited as Budget Committee chairman, Kasich has nowhere to go—except the vice presidency (Ohio has 21 electoral votes) or the directorship of the Office of Management and Budget...
...Unless Buchanan and Bauer can rend the fabric of the Reagan coalition, the primaries of 2000 will solidify the Reagan legacy in a Republican Party transformed...
...Social Security was viewed as "the third rail" of American politics—touch it and die...
...All the candidates have moved toward the position first articulated by Steve Forbes: oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, support the partial birth abortion ban and parental notification, but recognize that the public does not yet support a constitutional amendment to outlaw all abortions...
...In a press conference with Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, they called on all GOP presidential hopefuls to observe Ronald Reagan's famous 11th Commandment: "Thou shall not speak ill of a fellow Republican...
...Forbes's campaign for 2000 suffers from his unprecedented success in 1996...
...Buchanan would drive businessmen and farmers out of the Reagan coalition...
...So how do the Republican chairmen view the nomination contest...
...John Engler of Michigan...
...Their first observation—and for some the last—is that this race is George W. Bush's to lose...
...Ohio Rep...
...Real politicians—those who win elections —were convinced that both ideas would scareoff voters...
...George W. Bush defeating Vice President Al Gore by 54 to 41 percent...
...He has led in the fight to build strategic defenses and as vice president highlighted the importance of tort reform...
...Sen...
...Forbes has already changed American politics more than most presidential nominees and even some presidents...
...Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania or Gov...
...Before Forbes both ideas were limited to the halls of free-market think tanks...
...Politicians found to be losing in early match-ups GROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...That's good for the country and the party—but tough on the Forbes z000 campaign...
...The party chairmen invoked it because after eight frustrating years of Clinton they want to retake the presidency and believe Republicans will do so if they avoid a fratricidal nomination battle...
...Despite an otherwise fine record against tax hikes, McCain fought alongside Clinton for higher tobacco taxes...
...At the same time, McCain has been a tireless advocate of free trade and free markets in telecommunications, and in Arizona he wins more than 5o percent of the increasingly important Hispanic vote...
...Former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander has run the course before and has built a formidable network of key activists in Iowa and New Hampshire...
...Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer are the only two candidates running against the Reagan coalition...
...She raised only $676,000 in the first quarter of 1999, but then she's not really running for president...
...If adding a woman to the ticket guarantees victory in November, then Mrs...
...If persistence and hard work can win the presidency, Alexander will be a contender...
...As Budget Committee chairman he has battled appropriators who would bust the budget caps and has been equally vigorous in opposing corporate welfare...
...Sen...
...The dog that didn't bark is the amazing consensus in the Republican Party...
...But this year party chairmen were looking at an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on March 16...
...Abortion, the issue the establishment press perennially hopes will divide the Reagan coalition, is fading as a divisive issue...
...Should Bush turn out to have a glass jaw, Forbes will certainly still be in the ring...
...Only as the campaign heated up would independents and conservative Democrats tell pollsters they were crossing over to vote Republican...
...In the back of everyone's mind is his record of service in the Navy and the six years he spent in a North Vietnamese prison: an unstated rebuke to the present commander-in-chief...
...There are no Rockefeller Republicans here...
...The Right to Life Committee responded immediately by praising Bush's long-standing commitment to the pro-life cause...
...Polls of primary voters show him hovering at around 5o percent, with Mrs...
...Bob Smith of New Hamsphire looked around and decided—as have many senators —that none of these guys would be a better president than he...
...Quayle A candid assessment of the GOP presidential field...
...Back then he introduced two radical ideas into mainstream American politics: the flat-rate income tax and privatization of Social Security...
...Those heartland voters who oppose foreign military intervention are the most dependent on world trade...
...It showed Texas Gov...
...There is no Republican governor, and no serious GOP caucus in the House or Senate, pushing for higher tariff barriers...
...Dole has a job as veep...
...Bush has been endorsed by fifteen governors, 84 House members, and eight senators...
...Dan Quayle is liked and respected by party leaders, who first say the media has treated him shabbily but then openly wonder if his old wounds weren't fatal...
Vol. 32 • June 1999 • No. 6
