A Little Help from His Friends
BARNES, FRED
A Little Help from His Friends by Fred Barnes Merrimack, New Hampshire Bob Dole needs a friend. Threatened by the insurgent presidential campaign of Steve Forbes, Dole can no longer rely on his...
...Merrill, who'd been gabbing with journalists, showed up late, then provoked a half-dozen ovations in a 5-minute talk touting Dole...
...That doesn't entitle me to anything...
...In 1976, Gerald Ford defeated Ronald Reagan and won the GOP nomination solely because the party brass supported him...
...So did Reagan in 1980, Bush in 1992...
...Threatened by the insurgent presidential campaign of Steve Forbes, Dole can no longer rely on his Washington clout and personal political resources to win the Republican presidential nomination...
...Dole is already up to two...
...Merrill has persuaded him to talk more about himself, arguing that Republicans respect him for having thwarted Clinton but don't know him personally...
...He's now the most influential strategist in the Dole camp, participating in the campaign's morning conference call and talking four or five times a day to Scott Reed, the campaign manager...
...This argument is dynamite, Merrill told me, because New Hampshire "is not a renter or condo state...
...And this circumstance-the need to rely on the Republican party establishment-is also true for Dole nationally...
...Merrill is fully girded, slashing away at the Forbes version of the flat tax...
...The two are an odd couple...
...We grew up living in a basement apartment...
...Dole strains to keep a smile on his face, and his speeches are never barnburners...
...In New Hampshire, Merrill appears everywhere with Dole, the young sidekick (49) to the older Dole (72...
...He's angry about Forbes's campaign spending, regarding it as a perversion of democracy...
...Dole, or his allies anyway, is now saying the same about Forbes...
...I'm from Kansas...
...Neither of my parents finished high school...
...His best personal statement came in his closing comment, ad-libbed, at a televised debate in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 13...
...His rhetorical style is unusual, with cryptic asides sprinkled throughout his speeches, and he's never compelling...
...Nor has Dole second-guessed his campaign staff, which drafted the response to Clinton...
...The Forbes wave, like Reagan's rise in 1976, came early enough for Dole to fight back before the primaries begin...
...What's striking is Merrill's ability to stir enthusiasm where Dole doesn't...
...But Dole has stuck to the game plan...
...When he addressed the Merrimack Chamber of Commerce here on January 31, Dole spoke for 30 minutes without being interrupted by applause...
...But it does help me understand what a great and glorious future we have...
...In his stump speech, Dole says growing up in a small town "isn't always easy, but the values are durable...
...When criticism from the press and various Republicans mounted, Dole blamed himself...
...But Merrill, who earlier leaned toward Sen...
...In one, Merrill is standing outside, in casual clothes, in a residential neighborhood...
...That has happened to Dole before when he's been under pressure...
...There's another precedent that should encourage Dole...
...The question is whether he is going to slip into a deep, dark melancholy or say something that reflects that dark side," an adviser said...
...Phil Gramm, turns out to be critical to Dole's future...
...But his aides see one upside...
...Merrill and other Dole advisers loved it...
...His Senate aides, notably Sheila Burke, were sharply critical of the speech, however, calling it too conservative and partisan and insufficiently conciliatory to Clinton...
...Moreover, he helped shape Dole's two-track strategy in which the candidate mingles with voters and talks about values while others pound away at Forbes...
...There's no tax silver bullet," he says...
...But this time, no gloom or self-pity, at least so far...
...He snaps his fingers and smiles...
...Dole, by the way, at first thought he'd done well...
...He insists the Forbes flat tax will bloat the deficit and drive up taxes...
...I sacrificed for America...
...But there's one more characteristic of GOP presidential races, a less favorable one: The frontrunner invariably suffers an embarrassment along the way, maybe two or three...
...It requires him to talk about three things: old-fashioned values, himself, and his differences with Clinton...
...Ford won in New Hampshire by branding Reagan a threat to American life as we know it...
...As a consequence, "the typical New Hampshire household will pay $2,000 more in taxes and we lose our property tax deduction and our mortgage interest deduction...
...But he does have the backing of most party leaders-21 of 31 governors, 28 of 53 senators, and so on-and that is crucial...
...Merrill is ebullient, grinning, optimistic, voluble...
...As a candidate, he's bland...
...And he won't outspend Forbes...
...Better yet, Merrill has gone on TV with attacks on Forbes...
...Dole had hoped for an early knockout of his rivals, but now he figures Forbes may contest the nomination all the way to the convention in San Diego in August...
...Merrill's endorsement of Dole last November was overshadowed by the announcement by Colin Powell the same day that he wouldn't run for president...
...The result: Dole still has the best chance to be the GOP nominee...
...Without Merrill, Dole would be doomed in the New Hampshire primary on February 20...
...I'm a neighbor...
...Then came Dole's lackluster response on January 23 to President Clinton's State of the Union address...
...He lamented privately that his delivery of the response had been poor...
...It has a disproportionately high percentage of homeowners...
...His status as Senate majority leader doesn't seem to impress many...
...And the sudden rise of Forbes has also given Dole time to organize his institutional Republican backers for battle...
...When the race turns, it'll turn significantly, 10 points just like that...
...He requires outside aid, and he's getting it from Steve Merrill, the mega-popular and very conservative governor of New Hampshire...
...While Forbes may not measure up to Reagan, Dole clearly is playing the Ford role...
...The early front-runner normally grabs the prize in the Republican party...
...The aftermath of this debacle amounts to a defining moment for the Dole campaign...
...And Steve Forbes sold this tax as a silver bullet...
...Last August, he was tied by Gramm in a well-publicized straw poll in Iowa, whose caucuses on February 12 are the first major battleground this year...
...Ford did...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 21
