The Thrill Gap
BARNES, FRED
The Thrill Gap by Fred Barnes 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...
...Instead, he emphasizes process (term limits, killing the Department of Education) and gimmicks...
...The conventional explanation is that negative advertising, particularly by Steve Forbes, turned people off...
...Alexander has done plenty of attacking himself...
...His latest is a pair of knee-high boots he brings out to show his supposed distaste for negative campaigning...
...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...
...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...
...Dole took no chances on the day of the Iowa caucuses...
...Campaign manager Scott Reed has asked outside advisers to suggest a broader Dole strategy...
...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 not-so-distant past...
...Great, but my question is: Where's the beef...
...So Dole argued about trade with Buchanan...
...In his opener, Dole boasted he'd kept the New Hampshire primary "first in the nation," then blamed Alexander for going negative first...
...As a self-styled outsider, Alexander has an additional burden: He must prove he's a serious player, not just an ambitious jobseeker...
...Alexander emphasizes process over substance...
...He might even thrill someone...
...The moderators forced them to...
...They've lobbied for months for him to talk more substantively...
...Says who...
...But Dole has resisted this advice...
...This is radical devolution...
...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...
...After his embarrassingly narrow victory in Iowa, however, Dole relented...
...His opening statement in the TV debate in New Hampshire on February 15 jabbed at Dole for airing negative TV spots...
...This was especially true among those inclined to support Dole...
...Then there's the plaid shirt and the acronym ABC, "Alexander beats Clinton...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...True, they had to deal with significant issues in the New Hampshire debate...
...They diagnose America's problems and offer solutions...
...This has put Buchanan in real contention for the nomination...
...Like Dole, Alexander has plenty of substantive beef, most of it hidden...
...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...
...But it also distracts Alexander from saying much that matters...
...The constant repetition of ABC is annoying...
...The answer is Buchanan and Keyes say something...
...Still, the crowds sat on their hands during Dole's speeches...
...But getting Dole and Alexander to play up substance is almost impossible...
...And attack ads may indeed have played a small part...
...Alexander can do the same merely by playing up positions he's already taken...
...He's uncomfortable waging the campaign on substance," says a Dole strategist...
...He spoke to captive audiences at two insurance companies...
...But left to their own devices, Dole and Alexander veer to the trivial...
...His speech to the New Hampshire legislature on February 13 contained only one paragraph on declining wages...
...He hates it when people talk about the vision thing...
...You'd think Dole and Alexander would notice the enthusiastic crowds Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes attract and ask why...
...He does...
...And Alexander succinctly outlined his plans for reforming Social Security and stemming illegal immigration...
...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...
...Dole's advisers aren't to blame...
...And it's hypocritical...
...This tactic, proposed by Alexander's clever strategist, Mike Murphy, may have aided him in Iowa, and it may help in New Hampshire...
...A University of Iowa professor, Arthur Miller, tracked expected caucus participants and found many were too unmotivated to vote...
...He thinks it's faddish...
...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...
...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...
...The day before, Dole had brought young people in from Kansas and Ohio to pad his crowds...
...And his foreign policy speech the next day, an impressive putdown of isolationism, was drowned out by his negative ads on Buchanan...
...In New Hampshire, he spoke on a different issue each day, but just barely...
...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...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 23
