STEVE FORBES GETS A LIFE
Carlson, Tucker
STEVE FORBES GETS A LIFE Can a Flat-Taxer Find Success As a Moralist? By Tucker Carlson If you didn’t know better you might think Steve Forbes and Christine Todd Whitman were friends. The two...
...Many pro-choice Republicans thought they had found an ally...
...With rhetoric like this, it’s not surprising that Forbes has become popular with social conservatives, or that so many of his staff—from communications director Greg Mueller to his traveling press secretary, K.B...
...What can bring America back from the abyss...
...FORBES ONCE POINTED TO THE FLAT TAX...
...Most will be spent on advertising...
...Not even a little bit...
...Except much, much more amusing...
...He even has new glasses...
...The Forbes campaign makes this point so often, so relentlessly, that it almost seems true...
...He headed straight back to the comfort zone...
...He modulates the pitch and volume of his voice...
...As it turns out, none of these rumors seems to be true (as future FEC disclosure forms will likely demonstrate...
...To the naked eye, Forbes and Whitman look pretty chummy...
...Forbes did his best not to talk about social issues during his 1996 campaign, answering virtually every question with reference to his beloved flat tax...
...Forbes means it...
...Various pro-life groups pushed Forbes to clarify his beliefs—what did he mean, for instance, when he claimed to oppose mandatory federal funding of abortion?—but he refused...
...Advance staff on the Forbes campaign are reputed to be making $100,000 a year...
...When pressed, he took what appeared to be a moderate pro-choice position: Tucker Carlson is a staff writer for THEWEEKLY STANDARD...
...Forbes has been in Iowa at least once a month, every month for the past two years...
...While Bozell had better luck—Forbes didn’t mention the World Bank—it was clear Forbes had spent very little time thinking about the issue...
...described Forbes as “the most dangerous” of the Republican candidates...
...Forbes has also spent a good part of the last three years honing other aspects of his moral message...
...Unfortunately, Forbes still lacks charisma...
...It’s hard to know how many volunteers the site will produce, though it will certainly provide entertainment for bored white-collar workers...
...Volunteers who sign up numerous friends receive recognition as cyber wardheelers for voting blocs ranging in size from e- -precincts to e-cities and e-regions...
...In 1997, he raised money to help her win a second term...
...Or a Sisyphean Beltway Establishment game, where the more players win, the less they are allowed to keep...
...A year later, in an article written for Policy Review and widely disseminated by his non-profit organization, Forbes had decided that “capitalism and democracy alone are not enough to sustain a healthy, vibrant society...
...Their houses were about a mile apart,” he says...
...If he can’t, I’m concerned...
...And money isn’t all he has going for him...
...In the end, though, it’s clear that most of the $45 million or so Forbes plans to spend in the primaries will come from Forbes himself...
...There is cause for concern...
...Steve has the right ideas, but we need to get some passion behind him...
...Those who recruit with particular vigor win prizes and become members of the “e-National Committee...
...Plus, boasts one of the technicians who designed it, the site has “way cool interfaces...
...Forbes (no relation)—once worked for Pat Buchanan...
...She hates us,” says one Forbes aide...
...The firm that designed the Forbes2000.com site, Hensley Segal Rentschler of Cincinnati, has promised the campaign at least 500,000 on-line volunteers by the end of the primary season...
...At this point four years ago, the Forbes campaign points out, Bob Dole had over 50 percent of the Republican vote in all the primary states and was leading Clinton by double digits nationally...
...Campaign strategists immodestly predict that the Web site will become “the Amazon.com of the presidential race,” that it will bring together “the largest grass-roots organization in the history of representative democracy...
...Visitors to the site are asked to become “on-line volunteers,” and are then hit up for the e-mail addresses of their friends—each of whom in turn receives a pitch letter from the Forbes campaign...
...Forbes is rumored to be offering $1,000 a month to Republican leaders in every county in Iowa...
...Later, a Coalition official pulled Forbes aside and gave him a much-needed lesson in Republican primary politics...
...Many Republicans in Washington are still bitter at Forbes for the anti-Dole ads he ran in the 1996 primary...
...The Forbes campaign used Stone’s membership list for fund-raising in 1996...
...In person, Forbes is far more animated than his robotic caricature...
...Rusty Paul, a Forbes backer and the outgoing chairman of the Georgia Republican party, puts it this way: “The one challenge that Steve has in this campaign is lighting some enthusiasm among some people out there...
...On the subject of abortion, the coordinator of his Iowa campaign told the Boston Globe, Forbes “is not going to capitulate to the right wing...
...But what about Forbes himself...
...A lot of people make that argument because they’re cowards,” says Bozell...
...His position followed Roe a lot,” says Ann Stone, a former Forbes supporter who runs Republicans for Choice...
...In virtually every public appearance, Forbes condemns abortion and euthanasia and otherwise makes strongly pro-life noises...
...In 1993, Forbes did more than almost any other person to help Whitman become governor of New Jersey, first by drafting her winning tax plan, then by promoting her in his magazine and weekly newspapers...
...Brent Bozell, head of the conservative Media Research Center, also talked to Forbes about abortion around this time...
...The question assumes that Forbes once had a coherent position on the subject...
...The Forbes campaign is hoping the same will be true of George W. Bush...
...Some will go to grass-roots organizing in other states...
...If other Republicans “think the primary is going to be polite,” says one Forbes strategist, “they are sadly mistaken...
...Not only are Forbes and Whitman no longer friends, the aide confides, they did not, as has been widely reported, grow up next door to each other...
...Forbes does pay his staff well, but not extravagantly...
...Where will that money go...
...With no segue, he starts talking about the IMF...
...The problem is that except when he talks about baseball statistics or mystery novels, Forbes never seems very excited...
...For one thing, they worked...
...Dispatches will be posted regularly to the Web site, along with photos of Forbes in action—kissing babies, talking taxes with farmers, displaying his knowledge of retail food prices at supermarkets...
...Forbes may never be an inspiring speaker or thrilling flesh-presser, but his campaign staff is betting he won’t have to be...
...After a while you might come to the conclusion that he’s more excited about baseball statistics and mystery novels than he is about politics...
...I said, ‘That may be right,’” recalls the official, “ ‘but we represent an awful lot who vote in the Iowa caucuses.’” Forbes got the message...
...But has Forbes changed his position on abortion...
...A lot of them have called me to say they’ve written Forbes and told him where to stick it for changing his position...
...When Christie Whitman vetoed New Jersey’s ban on partial-birth abortion, Forbes ran ads in the state attacking her decision...
...They never talk...
...One political strategist in South Carolina, it is whispered in Washington, was offered $45,000 a month to organize for Forbes...
...Three years ago, under fire from religious conservatives, Forbes lost his temper and said that, in his opinion, the Christian Coalition doesn’t represent all Christians...
...Unlike Ross Perot—a tightwad who bragged about being a high roller—Forbes clearly hates the idea of being perceived as profligate...
...The Forbes campaign—while heatedly denying its advertising had anything to do with Dole’s loss—is unapologetic about the spots...
...Forbes still argues that abortion law should be dismantled bit by bit—before abortion can be abolished entirely, he says, pro-lifers must convince the public that abortion is wrong— but this time around, he sounds convincing...
...According to Stone, many of her members were infuriated when, after the election, Forbes began giving speeches denouncing abortion...
...Forbes plans to take his message outside the shopping malls and Rotary Clubs of the primary states and onto the Internet...
...He blinks...
...After the election, Forbes became a charter member of the new governor’s transition team...
...In 1996, Forbes made the case that a better tax system could solve just about all of America’s problems, including moral decay...
...Accurate or not, this is not an impression an aspiring presidential candidate wants to leave with audiences in Iowa or New Hampshire...
...The Forbes record is a bit more complicated...
...Way cool or not, Forbes2000.com does have some interesting features...
...Nor is it a shock that Rich Tafel, head of the pro-gay Log Cabin Republicans, recently WHAT CAN BRING AMERICA BACK FROM THE ABYSS...
...His staff concedes that Forbes finally took Michael Deaver’s advice and spent some time with a speech coach...
...Like CNN and MSNBC...
...THE IMPLICATION IS CLEAR: STEVE FORBES MAY BE A RICH, PRO-BUSINESS REPUBLICAN FROM NEW JERSEY, BUT HE’S NO CHRISTIE WHITMAN against a pro-life amendment to the Constitution, apparently accepting legal abortion in the early stages of pregnancy...
...Rival campaigns dismiss this support as bought and paid for...
...He has a solid economic plan, a new values platform, and—his staff seems particularly enthusiastic about this improvement—a state of the art, slightly less dorky haircut...
...In other words, Forbes is not pro-choice...
...This time, Forbes pointed not to the flat tax, but to the temperance movement of the nineteenth century—a model, he wrote, of what can happen when citizens undergo “spiritual renewal and religious dedication...
...Dole’s support, it turned out, had a hollow core...
...He even chuckles from time to time...
...Everyone agrees that as a self-financed candidate, Forbes can stay in the race as long as anyone, certainly until March...
...The Forbes campaign plans to hire a full-time reporter and photographer to cover the candidate’s activities on the campaign trail...
...There is no real difference between values and economics,” he told one Iowa audience (to what, one imagines, was limited applause...
...Winning the support of people like Brent Bozell is vital to the Forbes 2000 campaign...
...He often boasts of his thrifty Scottish roots, and even claims to make some of his own fund-raising calls...
...Steve Forbes may be a rich, pro-business Republican from New Jersey horse country, those around him frequently explain, but he’s no Christie Whitman...
...The best feature of all, though, is certain to be the “news” coverage...
...Not so, say those who run the Forbes 2000 presidential campaign...
...At the end he paused for a second and said, ‘I guess I’m pro-life.’” These days, the candidate seems much more certain of where he stands...
...Which is where the ads come in...
...If he can get some passion we’ve got a shot...
...As of last week, the Forbes campaign had hired former Christian Coalition leaders in at least five states to help organize the vote...
...NOW HIS MODEL IS THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT...
...Christie Whitman, Forbes wrote at the time, is an emerging “American Margaret Thatcher” with a “truly breathtaking” economic program...
...We plan to build our own propriety news agency online,” says one Forbes staffer excitedly...
...The two have known each other since their years together at Far Hills Country Day School in the 1950s...
...A lot of people say to me, ‘I love Steve, but I wish he was more energetic.’” It’s a sensitive point, and Paul searches for a way to explain it...
...The campaign plans to add games to the site, each with a trademark twist: A flat-tax game, for instance...
...And so, the implication is, are their politics...
...How will his support hold up...
...Forbes has a well-organized ground operation...
...Never has been...
...We talked about everything from partial birth to parental notification,” Bozell says...
...Forbes2000.com, the campaign’s official Web site, is huge, sophisticated, and packed with better-thanreal- life photos of Steve Forbes...
...In politics,” he says finally, “you need to have some political theater...
...One prominent Washington conservative recalls trying to discuss abortion with Forbes at a cocktail party in 1996...
...Up to $2 million will likely be spent rounding up support for Forbes in the Ames straw poll in Iowa next August...
Vol. 4 • March 1999 • No. 27
