Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 28, 1995 TAG: 9505310001
SECTION: EDITORIALS PAGE: G-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RONALD D. LANKFORD JR.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Call me a wet blanket; say I threw a glass of cold water in your face. But only by measured judgment and a deep seriousness can we make a reasoned choice.
And please, do not consider my disqualifications of the following candidates as personal indictments against them. Even with the highest moral standards, there are historical and cultural reasons why the following men should not run.
Both Pete Wilson and Pat Buchanan add new and evocative thinking on the problem of race in America, but don't both of their names have a historical ring to them?
Of course they do. We have already had presidents with the last names of Wilson and Buchanan.
Any student of American history will recognize - from this century alone - the mixed-up questions surrounding the two Roosevelts. Are they related, are they the same person, and why was the teddy bear named after Franklin Roosevelt?
Obviously, Wilson and Buchanan will never do.
Sen. Richard Lugar's name, I'm afraid, sounds a little bit like a handgun. Nothing's wrong with that, but one can easily see the confusion that would be created concerning gun legislation during his administration.
"The NRA supports Lugar," or worse, "Sarah Brady met today with Lugar." And no one would understand a headline proclaiming: "Lugar moderates position on handgun legislation."
Similarly troubled associations occur with Sen. Robert Dole. I know supermarkets where the price of pineapple fluctuates in relation to the senator's popularity; other people, with longer memories, keep getting him mixed up with the missionaries who won souls and made a lot of money in Hawaii.
It would also be quite an embarrassment to a President Dole if some sleepy editor misspelled his name D-U-L-L.
Sen. Gramm's problems are unique. He is likely to remind us of another evangelist - not of the group that went to Hawaii - and as he travels the country as a candidate, many people are going to be disappointed to learn that they have paid $100 to eat dinner with the senator named Phil (though perhaps his message for America wouldn't be that different than Billy's).
A Gramm campaign might also remind one of those crackers that you crush up to make a cheesecake pie crust.
And then there is Sen. Arlen Specter, whose name unfortunately brings to mind the organization that Roger Moore and Sean Connery spent their lives trying to defeat. With the Cold War ended and sexism politically incorrect, now is hardly the proper time to have James Bond brought to mind. (I'm also afraid that the senator was in attendance at that unfortunate hearing with Miss Hill.)
That doesn't leave too many in the field, but what use are candidates with handicaps such as these? In the end, I'm sure that everyone will thank me for narrowing down the field - because by midsummer, you can bet that at least a dozen more candidates - some with acceptably neutral names - will have entered the field.
Ronald D. Lankford Jr. is a bank courier in Christiansburg.
by CNB