Why the GOP Nominee May Lose
BARNES, FRED
Why the GOP Nominee May Lose Al will gore Bush or McCain with this formula: Roe, race, and recklessness. BY FRED BARNES PRESIDENT CLINTON has given George W. Bush (or whoever wins the Republican...
...Bush has a tax cut to talk about, but he'll need a lot more to offset the dazzling numbers that Clinton tossed around in the State of the Union and Gore mentions in his speeches...
...They'll attack him for trying to force women into back-alley abortions or worse...
...All he's noted is that the Supreme Court "overreached," a common view...
...The Republican candidate has got to force Gore to defend his position, especially his opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortion, to parental notification, and to a 24-hour waiting period...
...After all, three months ago, Gore was a laughingstock as a candidate, stiff, boring, and given to ridiculous claims...
...But Bush, at the moment, isn't one of them...
...Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is a clever adjustment to the new mood...
...What they've got to do is become tougher, better candidates and seize the initiative...
...True, he's for banning abortion, but only when a solid pro-life majority emerges in America and not a moment before...
...Bush "doesn't believe in Roe v. Wade," and thus if he's elected, legalized abortion will be "scrapped...
...His message was that Democrats should pummel Bush (or John McCain) on abortion...
...The public's animus against federal spending and Washington has diminished...
...The attacks were over the top, but they worked...
...Keyes overstates the problem, but there is a problem...
...Both appear uncomfortable in the extreme discussing abortion...
...But the poll did not reflect how the issue agenda, the campaign strategies, the skill of the candidates, and the condition of the country now favor Gore...
...Democrats "should make sure that everybody knows where everybody else is coming from in this deal," Clinton said...
...Which leads to another question Bush or McCain will have to answer: How exactly would he improve on the Clinton-Gore economic record...
...And Bush or McCain must flip the abortion issue to his benefit...
...And he'll have to do better on the Democratic staples of health care, education, Social Security, and Medicare as well...
...Now, he's the best candidate in the field—ruthless and resourceful, and not quite as grating as he once was...
...Somebody like George Bush can take a stand, but he can't defend that stand," says Keyes, who cites Bush or McCain has got to take the fight to Gore on every issue, not just the moral lapses of the Clinton-Gore White House...
...The assaults will be crude, dishonest, and relentless...
...As for McCain, he is largely uninterested in domestic policy, and it shows...
...This is possible...
...The political mood in the country has shifted to the left, slightly but perceptibly, in the past several years...
...Though pro-life, he's made it clear he doesn't want to get ahead of public sentiment on abortion...
...He'll have to do better than that against Gore...
...This makes Gore vulnerable, but only if Bush or McCain offers compelling alternatives and rips his policy apart...
...Liberals like Gore have that, he argues, and it means they're never lost when policy discussions go beyond their talking points...
...Otherwise, Gore wins the issue and probably the election...
...Gore isn't likely to face that problem with Bradley...
...They've got to take the fight to Gore on every issue, not just the moral lapses of the Clinton-Gore White House...
...Either Gore or Bradley, says Keyes, "has the ability to clean George Bush's clock, wipe up the floor with him...
...in a New Hampshire debate on January 26, McCain gave the same defensive response twice ("proud of my pro-life record") when questioned by Alan Keyes...
...Each came late to politics, has a glowing personality, was elected governor, and is constantly underestimated...
...The trouble is, Bush hasn't been very adept at fleshing it out in an appealing way—or in any other way, for that matter...
...Defeating Gore will require Bush or McCain to go on the offensive and stay there...
...tage...
...Make Gore explain why he wants tax cuts for everyone but actual taxpayers...
...As for Bush, Gore is already raising a stink about his tax cut...
...What Clinton did in his State of the Union address, Gore does in his standard campaign speech...
...Neither has a capacity to do that now, and it wouldn't be easy in any case...
...Rather than defend his tax cut, he's chosen to go after the flaws in McCain's and insist that he, Bush, is for paying down the national debt, too...
...This isn't 1980 or 1994, years in which a candidate needed only an R beside his name to win...
...As for McCain, he'd better change the subject to foreign and defense policy...
...The same is true for McCain...
...Just uttering the phrase "compassionate conservative" isn't enough...
...They're so lame, in fact, that Gore now includes in his stump speech a riff condemning them for refusing to call for removing the Confederate battle flag from atop the South Carolina capitol...
...Hedging will only make things worse by raising doubts about his own character...
...It's true that Clinton and Gore don't deserve the credit for the strong economy...
...This fine-tuning of his position won't matter to Clinton, Al Gore, and practically every other Democrat...
...Bush's rambling answer to a question about what Jesus Christ would do on the death penalty, which Bush supports...
...Like Clinton's mild criticism on abortion, this is a precursor to inflammatory, race-baiting attacks by Gore and other Democrats...
...Bush has occasionally been good at explaining his education reforms, though you'd never know it from his feeble response in the January 26 debate to Steve Forbes about his record as Texas governor...
...Some Bush advisers liken him to Ronald Reagan, and the analogy isn't entirely farfetched...
...Make him justify his refusal to help black and Hispanic kids escape terrible inner city schools...
...They have an ideology to fall back on...
...A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showing Bush ahead by a mere three points reflected this...
...Against him, Bill Bennett's adage applies: In politics, when you're not on offense, you're on defense...
...Also, Reagan was aided by the fact that the United States was losing the Cold War to the Soviet Union and was suffering from double-digit inflation...
...BY FRED BARNES PRESIDENT CLINTON has given George W. Bush (or whoever wins the Republican presidential nomination) a taste of what's to come...
...Here's the point: Bush isn't ready to fight off such attacks, much less turn the abortion issue to his advanFred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Unfortunately for Republicans, these issues will be front and center this fall...
...After Gore's smashing victory over Bill Bradley in the iowa caucuses, it became conventional wisdom that he'll be a strong challenger to Bush or McCain in the fall...
...Gore will simply turn to McCain's boast that he's voted for every tax cut possible as a member of Congress, notably the $792 billion cut that Clinton vetoed last year...
...Now it can be told, Clinton informed a crowd of Democrats in Los Angeles on January 22...
...Despite Gore's advantages, don't count Bush or McCain out yet...
...Make him present a case for racial preferences...
...But they have bragging rights...
...Clinton was actually being gentle, but that won't last...
...Gore's positions are hardly unassailable...
...McCain may think he's off the hook on economic recklessness because his proposed tax cut is so puny, but he's not...
...For Gore, one policy fits all: No reform, no belt-tightening, just throw money...
...Jimmy Carter was wounded by a bitter primary fight with senator Teddy Kennedy that stretched all the way to the Democratic national convention...
...Now, neither Bush nor McCain seems ready to reply aggressively...
...And the deal is that, should Bush win, what Democrats call "a woman's right to choose"—they never say the word "abortion"—will be gone...
...Roe, race, and recklessness—those are the tools of attack for Gore...
...There's a response to this that scores of Republican candidates could give...
...Alan Keyes thinks Bush and McCain stumble because they lack a "digested" set of principles...
...Bush and McCain aren't any better at deflecting attacks on race than they are on Roe...
...There's a larger point in all this: Republican prospects for the presidency are worse than they appear...
...Bush has improved, too, particularly in debates, but he still has a long way to go to match Gore...
...And endlessly restating a position won't do either...
...Bush was every bit as robotic, insisting he's been "a pro-life governor" who has promoted abstinence and adoption and recognizes "good people can disagree on this issue...
...Their response is to cite their "pro-life record" and mention their tolerance of those who disagree...
...So does McCain...
...It's a "scheme" to enrich the wealthy that would put America's prosperity at risk, Gore says...
...In 1998, they blamed Republicans for church burnings and said GOP candidates intended to roll back civil rights laws...
...sure, Bush has never declared, publicly anyway, that he wants to see Roe overturned...
...They describe their position without justifying it or seeking to persuade anyone of its rightness...
...And you can bet they will...
...But Reagan ran in a year when the nation was hell-bent on getting a new president...
Vol. 5 • February 2000 • No. 20
