ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602230090
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: E.J. DIONNE
THE CAMPAIGN for the Republican presidential nomination has turned into a brawl so nasty that party loyalists are petrified over their prospects for the fall.
We had such unity, drive and purpose after the 1994 elections, say Republicans to each other. How did we get into this mess?
In fact, the Republicans' troubles involve hordes of chickens who decided in 1996 to come home - or at least come to Iowa and New Hampshire - to roost. Almost everything that upsets Republicans about this campaign is the product of strategies the party pursued on its own behalf in the past. Now a price is being paid.
Take the awful negativism of the Iowa and New Hampshire contests. No, negative campaigning is not exclusively a Republican specialty. Democrats have run plenty of nasty and misleading television ads. But the Republican twist on the theme has been to run constantly against government as an evil and alien force dominated by horrid ``bureaucrats'' and ``corrupt politicians.''
But wait a minute. Haven't the two most probable Republican nominees, Bob Dole and Lamar Alexander spent much of their lives in - gasp! - government? If government is the dishonorable thing Republicans keep saying it is, Dole and Alexander must be pretty wretched folks to hang around in it for so long.
That is what Steve Forbes said in his atomic assault of negative ads, and many Republicans acted as if this poor multimillionaire newcomer had actually invented something new.
``He bashes all the people who work for government,'' Minnesota Republican Gov. Arne Carlson told my Washington Post colleague David Broder. ``He clearly suggests that all elected officials are there for their own personal gain and have all sorts of venal motives, that bureaucrats are useless and worthless.''
Now Carlson, a serious governor who has tangled with his party's right wing, has to know that Forbes's government-bashing is actually a poor tactical imperative of most Republican campaigns these days.
To his credit, Carlson rejects the premise of such campaigns, describing democratic government as ``a noble profession'' and ``the institution that has allowed this nation to become the most successful in the history of the world.'' Alas, once all the primary fighting is over, Carlson's warning will be lost. It would be nice to have a Republican nominee echo Carlson, but don't count on it.
Then there is all the fear and trembling over the influence of the religious right. For the Wall Street Journal editorial page to criticize Republicans is, as John F. Kennedy once said, a little like the L'Osservatore Romano criticizing the pope. But there was the Journal last week in an editorial with the delightful headline ``McGovern Republicans'' wondering why social and economic conservatives just couldn't get along.
The reason is that Republicans have spent years courting the resentments of the religious conservatives and heightening their fears. Party leaders loved all the votes that poured out of the churches.
But many of the very same Republicans knew that they couldn't deliver in policy what their rhetoric seemed to promise. Few Republicans were honest enough to tell the religious right: You can't possibly get all that you hoped for. It just won't happen in a pluralist democracy.
The rank-and-file of the religious right is in fact far smarter than either its putative allies or avowed enemies think. Religious conservatives knew that they were being pandered to by the party establishment, and they're getting their revenge by voting for Pat Buchanan, the one candidate who actually does believe what he says about social issues. Now, mainstream conservatives are complaining about the genie they themselves let out of the bottle.
Finally, there is the matter of the Buchanan campaign co-chair, caught speaking to white supremacists and extremist militia groups. The best thing about that story is that it focused attention on the extremist things Buchanan himself has said in the past.
But in truth, much of the Republican Party has pandered to pro-gun extremists. With the extreme gun crowd as with the religious right, Republican politicians want their political efforts to take place underground and out of public view. They complain only when the crazy aunt in the attic insists on making a public statement.
So think of Iowa and New Hampshire as the triumph of accountability. There are a lot of Republicans who are not reflexively anti-government, who want their party to be socially conservative in a reasonable and moderate sort of way, who know it needs to shun the most rabid of the gun and militia cadres. Will they speak up as Carlson did?
Democratic nominees are routinely required to stand up to their party's ``special interests.'' Will Dole and Alexander be put to the same test?
E.J. Dionne is a member of The Washington Post editorial page staff.
The Washington Post
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB