And it shows,
for who is George W. Bush? The compassionate conservative? Or the friend of
social conservatives at racist Bob Jones University? A scion of the GOP elite
who, with little effort, snagged $70 million from the party’s moneybags?
Or a drawlin’ Washington outsider? A moderate Republican who triangulates
from the House GOPers? Or the white knight of the Republican establishment,
which has showered him with endorsements? He’s not been in public life
long enough for anyone to know for sure.

In South
Carolina, Bush put out a dizzying merry-go-round of images. To staunch the flow
of independents into John McCain’s camp, he maintained, absurdly, he was
a "reformer." But each day, he was spending $3 million from his fatcat
coffers. He also proclaimed he was the fellow who could best bring together
Republicans and Democrats in Washington. But, at the same time, he lurched hard-right
to portray himself as the only real Republican in the race. Before New Hampshire,
the compassionate-conservative routine had seemed a stroke of genius: Look!
A Republican who isn’t a threatening or grouchy right-winger. What smart
marketing. But those Yankees didn’t buy it. Now Bush is willing to be whatever
he needs to be: a hack for all. Remember the previous be-nice-to-colored-folk
Bush who went out of his way to have his photo snapped with cute black and brown
children? In the Palmetto State, you didn’t see him rushing to grade schools
in minority neighborhoods. Who can guess what he’ll be next week?

Bush the
Lesser, though, does absorb his programming well. When he hits a message, he
often repeats it. As in, "I know how to lead, how to lead." Is this
a double-clutch, as he mentally lunges toward a familiar point, a safe place?
There is a trace of Quayle-ish insecurity in his verbal tic–maybe he figures
if he claims over and over that he can lead, he’ll convince both voters
and himself–and there’s something pathetic in how vociferously he
cites his leadership abilities. A week before the South Carolina contest–Bush
explained his visit to Bob Jones University by saying he had wanted to talk
to people there about his brand of conservatism: "That’s why I went.
That’s what a leader does. A leader doesn’t shirk." In keeping
with that logic, Bush soon should be dropping in on the racist Council of Conservative
Citizens and the Log Cabin (that is, gay) Republicans, for a leader in
his book takes his message to whatever audience will have him, even if that
causes him to come across as cravenly. A leader, says George W., is willing
to make that sacrifice. For the good of the public, naturally.

A leader,
apparently, also defies reason. Bush is a cheerleader for capital punishment,
and has presided over far more executions (119 since he took office) than any
other governor in the nation. Recently, though, death penalty fans have been
put on the defensive. Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a Republican who supports Bush,
halted executions in his state, citing the fact that 13 people on his state’s
death row have been exonerated since 1977 (some due to advances in DNA-related
technology). That’s one more than the number killed by the state. Since
1976, 85 people nationwide have been released from death row because of new
evidence, while 610 have been executed. So for every seven persons killed, one
innocent person has been sentenced to death–hardly a good margin of error
for the most irreversible of actions.

Noting Ryan’s
bold step, CNN’s Larry King asked Bush during the South Carolina debate
if Bush should follow his fellow governor’s example. No, said Bush: "I’m
actually convinced that everybody who was convicted [and executed] was guilty
of the crime. " King pressed Bush: "And you know they all did it?"
Bush answered, "Yes, absolutely." Now, all us grownups realize that
(1) Bush cannot say anything else and (2) there is no way for him to know "absolutely"
that all 119 people who were offed by his government were guilty. What are the
chances the Texas justice system got every case "absolutely" right,
if Illinois and other states have not?

Death penalty
opponents have been emboldened lately. Sen. Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat,
urged President Clinton to halt federal executions. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy,
also a Democrat, introduced legislation that would guarantee all death row inmates
access to DNA testing when it could result in new evidence of their innocence,
and grant them the opportunity to present the results in court. Clinton, at
his press conference last week, referred positively to the Leahy bill, even
as he dismissed Feingold’s call. And there’s another front some antideath-penalty
activists have been considering: Is it possible, just possible, to prove that
one of the people executed in Texas by Bush was innocent? Imagine Bush’s
reaction should that occur. Bush the Inexperienced has yet to demonstrate how
a leader admits a life-and-death mistake.

Airball
Bill
Bradley, please stop. It’s become painful to watch this man try to deny
Al Gore his supposed birthright. After placing second in New Hampshire–where
Bradley pounded Gore for falsely declaring he’d always been pro-choice–Bradley
has continued to attack Gore for having changed his stance on abortion in the
1980s. Last week, Bradley aired ads blasting Gore for not boasting a lifelong
commitment to choice. It’s obvious Bradley’s trying to demonstrate
a larger notion: Gore is a soulless, finger-in-the-wind politician. Well, duh.
But one of the few instances in which the Clinton-Gore administration has hung
tough has been the tussle over abortion rights, including late-term abortions.
(Sources in the abortion-rights field do say, however, that Clinton nearly caved
on late-term abortions.) Moreover, Gore has won the backing of Gloria Steinem
and the National Abortion Rights Action League; last fall Voters for Choice
handed him an award. Is this the best strategy the former Knick can concoct,
going after a sitting vice president on an issue where he commands (somewhat
justifiably) such support from the Democratic faithful? Are there many Democratic
voters who fear Gore cannot now be trusted on choice, who worry that he will
flip back once he is top dog in the White House? In fact, Democrats are accustomed
to senators and representatives shifting to pro-choice when they decide to run
for national office; it’s a venerable party tradition.

This is
no way for a supposed insurgent–who promotes progressive themes to topple
the entrenched Democratic establishment–to act. Pick at Gore’s positions
from two decades ago? Bradley’s wasting his money and ours. (Like Gore
and McCain, he receives federal matching funds because he has agreed to abide
by campaign spending limits. Bush the Reformer refuses to play by these rules.)
If Bradley cares about the issue of reproductive rights, he’d be better
off refunding to his contributors the bucks he’s spending on these spots,
asking them to instead pass those dollars to Planned Parenthood. Indeed, given
his current chances of booting Gore, if Bradley is serious about battling campaign
finance sleaze, racism and child poverty, he should consider suspending his
presidential bid and sending the millions he has in his campaign account to
Common Cause, the NAACP and the Children’s Defense Fund. That would produce
more progress on these matters than the continuation of a campaign managed by
people foolish enough to believe they can win the Democratic primary by running
against NARAL and the pro-choice community.

What’s
made the run-up to the actual campaign interesting–at least to the 10 percent
or so of the Americans who have bothered to pay any attention–is that in
each party the contest has boiled down to an outsider-insider vs. an establishment
frontman. True, neither outsider-insider is as much of an outsider as he maintains.
McCain, who decries the special-interest-dominated campaign finance system,
raised big bucks from lobbyists for the telecommunications, insurance, HMO,
automotive, securities and computer industries. Bradley, who decries the special-interest-dominated
campaign finance system, raised much of his campaign cash from Wall Street executives.
How insurgent can either be?

Still, Republican
McCain and Democrat Bradley have thrown a few pebbles of sand into the gears
of coronation within their respective parties. They even sparked a few brief
spasms of policy discourse: McCain, late in the game, questioned the GOP’s
love affair with supply-side tax cuts; Bradley, in his too-smug fashion, challenged
the incrementalism of Clintonism. Neither would-be party pooper has offered
fundamental alternatives, but they’ve tossed up more flak than the politerati
once expected.

Actually,
McCain’s face-off with Bush is more an outsider-vs.-establishment clash
than Bradley’s competition with Gore. McCain’s support of modest reform
is utterly out of sync with the prevailing status-quo attitude of the Republican
political class. Bradley’s argument for reform agenda is not as foreign
to the Democratic political class. (Democrats in the Senate, for instance, have
rallied behind McCain’s reform legislation; GOPers have not.) And McCain,
by pushing antitobacco legislation in the Senate, has displayed more daring
than Bradley ever did as a senator.

McCain,
though, is following an unusual game plan for a Republican: whack away at special
interests and assail Big Tobacco, one of his party’s most reliable funders.
It may not be a smart stratagem, but it’s fun to watch. In the final pre-primary-season
weeks, McCain pushed even further: he attacked Bush’s tax cuts for being
too generous to the rich. When was the last time a Republican complained about
that? Other GOPers immediately pounced on him for waging class warfare, but
McCain quipped, “Class warfare is when you want to take from the rich and
give to the poor.” He was rightfully pointing out that under Bush’s
tax plan, hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used for Social Security,
Medicare and other programs that serve the middle class and the poor, would
be zapped to the wealthiest Americans. (A third of Bush’s $1.7 trillion
tax cut will go to the top one percent–people making more than $319,000
a year–according to Citizens for Tax Justice.)

It’s
doubtful McCain can get far among Republicans by assailing tobacco, campaign
money and big tax cuts. In fact, his quasi-maverick campaign made Bush seem
an establishment Republican, not the role the Texas Governor set out to play.
But this development probably won’t hurt the guy. “Four months ago,
George Bush was running as a compassionate conservative,” GOP pundit-publisher
Bill Kristol said last week. “It was a new kind of Republicanism… It
was not going to be the old standard conservative establishment type of campaign.
Now, he is running a totally orthodox Republican establishment campaign. He
is the candidate of the Republican establishment and the conservative establishment.”

Once upon
a time, Republicans did look upon Bush’s so-called compassionate conservatism
with suspicion. Lamar Alexander dubbed Bush’s slogan “weasel words.”
(These days, Alexander is a weasel-backer.) Dan Quayle, in disgust, ordered
his staff never to use the term. And when Bush slapped the congressional Republicans
last year for proposing to delay disbursing tax credits for the poor, many Republicans
wondered what the party was stuck with. But Bush has come home. Stephen Moore,
an analyst at the libertarian-conservative Cato Institute, put it this way:
“McCain’s attacks are actually helping Bush, because it makes him
look like a Ronald Reagan supply-sider. This helps establish Bush’s fiscally
conservative credentials.”

Bush has
McCain on money–the Governor’s positions are more in keeping with
present-day Republican thinking. McCain’s chance lies in Republicans voting
for leadership over ideas, or for an oddball war-hero-jock, over the affable,
cool kid on campus. But outsiders tend to lose, and no outsider has ever beaten
an insider who has so much cash.

Bradley’s
problem is similar to McCain’s: his purported outsiderism has failed to
connect with the main constituencies of his party. That’s partly because
this outsider-challenger doesn’t believe in coalition politics. Never has.
As a senator, Bradley neither reached out to blocs of citizens nor worked with
organized groups. He did talk passionately about race in America, but civil
rights leaders in his home state of New Jersey rarely heard from him. Even if
Bradley’s positions (the campaign 2000 models) are closer than Gore’s
to those of traditional Democratic liberals (though not unionists), Gore, who’s
been visiting black churches and union halls for years, has played the constituency
game better. Moreover, Bradley’s supposedly outside approach to health
care–subsidies for people to buy private health insurance–scores well
for boldness but flops on actual details, for it strengthens the insurance industry.
Bradley’s effort is no Jerry Brown-like campaign aimed at energizing traditional
Democratic blocs neglected by the centrist waverers of the party. Consequently,
Bradley may be vanquished by an establishment candidate who both attacks Bradley
for being too left and maintains better ties with the left-leaning elements
of the Democratic electorate. It’s a damn weird dynamic.

Simpleminded
death-penalty advocates searching for religious justification can point to the
"eye for an eye" chestnut in the Old Testament and ignore that inconvenient
"thou shall not kill" commandment. But Bush’s number-one political
philosopher had some thoughts of his own on this topic. So says the United Methodist
Church. That’s Bush’s church, for the born-again Bush has been a practicing
Methodist since he married his wife Laura. In 1980, the United Methodist Church
passed a resolution opposing capital punishment that noted, "In spite of
a common assumption to the contrary, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth’ does not give justification for the imposing of the penalty of
death. Jesus explicitly repudiated the lex talionis (Matthew 5:38-39),
and the Talmud denies its literal meaning and holds that it refers to financial
indemnities. When a woman was brought before Jesus having committed a crime
for which the death penalty was commonly imposed, our Lord so persisted in questioning
the moral authority of those who were ready to conduct the execution that they
finally dismissed the charges. (John 8:31)."

As it happens,
my office is next to the Washington office of a Christian denomination–Newt
Gingrich lives on the floor below ours–and one of the workers there, Lisa
Henderson, has long been my informal consultant on all matters biblical. I toss
her questions such as, "Where do the religious conservatives get that line
about wives being subservient to husbands?" In return, she shoots me queries
about Judaism, such as, "Do Jews celebrate the Year 2000 New Year’s?"
So recently I popped my head in the door of her suite and said, "Jesus
Christ and the death penalty–what do you got?" Within minutes, she
had a slew of citations that ought to make Bush cringe. There’s Matthew
5:21, where Jesus is said to have said: "Ye have heard that it was said
by them of old time, thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be
in danger of judgment." Two lines earlier, Bush’s greatest influence
is quoted declaring, "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least
[Ten] commandments shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom
of heaven." In the Book of James, this sentiment is reiterated: "Do
not kill…yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law."
And there is the good ol’ Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus observed, "Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." That point is also made
in James: "For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no
mercy."

As the head
of the state government that has killed more people than any other–the
pace of execution increased 75 percent there from 1998 to 1999–Bush has
much blood on his hands. Regarding killing, Jesus’ philosophy seems clear.
A question for the Governor: Why has the Son of God, who supposedly has brought
you salvation, left your heart untouched on this issue of life and death?

True, Gore
has, at times, been something of a leader in this area. But his leadership has
been erratic. Throughout this campaign, Gore has done little to reprise his
stint as the environmental politician. When I searched The Hotline,
the political insiders’ daily guide, for the words "Gore" and
"global warming," the most recent hit occurred in the middle of the
summer, when Gore made an appearance with Bill Nye, "The Science Guy,"
and criticized GOPers in Congress for blocking environmental spending.

Eight years
ago–after he had taken himself out of the 1992 presidential race–Gore
published Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Conservatives
still get off by combing its pages for what they consider to be examples of
his gaga green extremism. The book, though, was a well-argued and seemingly
heartfelt cry for far-reaching, kick-ass environmental policies. But it contains
passages that should haunt Gore, sentences that deserve to be taken off the
shelf again and again, whenever anyone is evaluating Gore. At the start of Chapter
14–"A New Common Purpose"–Gore wrote, "I have come
to believe that we must take bold and unequivocal action: we must make the rescue
of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization."
Um, what happened? Has Gore behaved in a manner consistent with this revelation?
When you see him on the campaign trail fighting to keep an office in the White
House, do you think, "There goes a pol who wants to make the rescue of
the environment the central organizing principle of civilization"?

A clue to
the disappearance of the Ozone Man–that’s what George W. Bush’s
Pop derisively called Gore in 1992–can be found in the introduction. There
Gore confessed, "I have become very impatient with my own tendency to put
a finger to the political winds and proceed cautiously. The voice of caution
whispers persuasively in the ear of every politician, often with good reason.
But when caution breeds timidity, a good politician listens to other voices…
[N]ow, every time I pause to consider whether I have gone too far out on a limb,
I look at the new facts that continue to pour in from around the world and conclude
that I have not gone nearly far enough. The integrity of the environment is
not just another issue to be used in political games for popularity, votes,
or attention. And the time has long since come to take more political risks–and
endure much more political criticism–by proposing tougher, more effective
solutions and fighting hard for their enactment."

Somehow,
it seems, the "voice of caution" has gotten to Gore. The Clinton-Gore
proposals to counter global warming are far weaker than those measures advocated
by scientists who have confirmed the existence of a global-warming threat. And
if campaigns provide the chance to demonstrate leadership by bringing tough
issues to the public, Gore so far has let the opportunity pass. A good guess
is that "other voices" have told him to lay off that sky-is-falling,
environmental stuff. It only depresses people. And, besides, where else are
greenies going to go?

Obviously
the problem of global warming has not vanished. The science continues to get
clearer and more frightening. Right before Christmas, Peter Ewins, the chief
executive officer of the UK Meteorological Office, and James Baker, the undersecretary
in charge of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, issued
a letter that contained a stern warning. Recent data collected by both agencies,
they said, confirm "that our climate is now changing rapidly. These new
observations, when combined with our improving understanding of the climate
system, increasingly point to human influences as the cause of these climate
changes." This pair of scientists noted that the 1990s was the "hottest
decade of the last 1,000 years in the Northern Hemisphere." In the United
States, 1999 will probably be the second warmest year on record since 1880.
And, the two added, the heat is no fluke of nature: "The rapid rate of
warming since 1976, approximately 0.2 degrees C per decade, is consistent with
the projected rate of warming based on human-induced effects. In fact, scientists
now say that they cannot explain this unusual warmth without including the effects
of human-generated greenhouse gases and aerosols."

Ewins and
Baker criticized the naysayers in the United States who claim the global warming
threat is just hype; they mean the corporate community and its allies in conservative
think tanks. "Our new data and understanding," they wrote, "now
point to the critical situation we face: to slow future change, we must start
taking action soon. At the same time, because of our past and ongoing activities,
we must start to learn to live with the likely consequences–more extreme
weather, rising sea levels, changing precipitation patterns, ecological and
agricultural dislocations, and the increased spread of human disease."

Public opinion
and public policy lag woefully far behind the science on this crucial environmental
issue. (Forget the recent millennium-inspired blather in the punditry about
whether the next century will be tagged another "American Century."
It probably will be known as the Century of Sizzle. That is, if it’s not
dubbed the Chinese Century–imagine a billion people with cellphones!–or
the Century of the Transnational Corporation.) And where’s Gore? He is
not throwing caution to the wind. Like George W. Bush, he, too, shows a lack
of commitment to the faith he has professed.

The No-Net-Tax
crowd argues that Internet sales are more akin to out-of-state mail-order sales
than cash-register purchases; mail-order firms are not taxed, therefore… Case
closed. But this basic premise is wrong. Sales taxes are levied on the buyer,
yet they are collected by the seller, who then sends the money to the government.
If you buy by phone from a L.L. Bean catalog, you still are obligated to pay
sales tax–but not through the retailer. Instead, you’re supposed to
forward the tax payment to your state capital. Technically speaking, all you
good citizens who shop by catalog or online and don’t pay sales taxes are
tax cheats. Of course, no one pays these taxes, but that’s not because
there’s an established tax break for those who shop this way. It’s
because there is no collection mechanism. A 1967 Supreme Court ruling declared
that businesses could not be compelled to collect sales taxes from consumers
in states where they do not maintain a physical presence. The court reasoned
it would be too much of a pain-in-the-bookkeeper for businesses with mail-order
customers across the country to gather sales taxes that would have to be sent
to dozens of different state revenue offices. The law did not create a sales-tax
exemption for mail-order transactions.

In the computer
age, collecting and forwarding sales taxes on mail- or phone-order sales should
be no problem. Certainly Land’s End could find software that would calculate
how much tax to collect from these sales and determine where to send the money.
(And a 1992 Supreme Court decision noted that Congress had the power to force
such sellers to charge sales taxes.) Such software could easily be applied to
Internet sales.

In 1998,
President Clinton signed into law legislation that imposed a three-year moratorium
on Internet-related sales taxes and set up the Advisory Commission on Electronic
Commerce, which is supposed to study the “remote sales taxation issue.”
Its report to Congress is due this April. The National Governors Association,
under the guidance of Republican Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt, has proposed a system
in which a third party–such as a credit card company–would gather
the sales tax on Internet commerce and, using high-tech software, zap it to
the proper governmental recipient, for a slight fee.

A band of
conservatives and Republicans–including Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, Rep.
John Kasich, members of the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Tax Reform,
the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute–have called for legislation
to prevent states and localities from collecting sales taxes on Internet purchases.
And conservative policy shops in Washington have been churning out a blizzard
of faxes and studies opposing an Internet sales tax. Lisa Dean, vice president
of the Free Congress Foundation, recently warned–with a touch of melodrama–that
the “greatest development of modern times, namely, the Internet” could
be “regulated out of usefulness,” if Internet sales are taxed. California
Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, has sided with the advocates of a tax-free Internet.
“This industry, which is powering the new economy, providing jobs and newfound
wealth for many Americans, is only eight years old, it’s an infant, it’s
too early to tax it, and we should extend the moratorium,” he says. No
surprise there: Davis has Silicon Valley to make happy.

But why
do Internet sales deserve any break? Maintain the tax moratorium, and Internet
businesses will have a powerful edge over Main Street businesses that must charge
the sales tax. This is cybersocialism, with the right-wingers seeking a government
preference for Web-based firms. “As an economist, I believe various forms
of enterprise should compete with one another,” says Henry Aaron, a senior
fellow at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t see any substance [to
the arguments for an Internet tax break]. All you hear is rhetoric extolling
the wonders of the Internet and heavy-breathing about its potential to change
society and that it would be a shame if government squelched new technology.
But here we have a technologically advanced enterprise with a real efficiency
advantage that allows it to present a wide range of choices to consumers and
maintain lower inventories [than street-front stores]. These are real strengths.
It doesn’t qualify for special treatment… Why should the government subsidize
Internet sellers in competition with retail shops? Why should either be favored?”

As more
commerce shifts from real stores to virtual shops, the revenue consequences
for states and localities could become severe. The Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities estimates that, four years from now, local governments could lose
$15 billion in taxes due to catalog and cyber sales. And if Internet sales are
exempted from taxes, low-income consumers who cannot afford computer equipment
will end up paying a disproportionate share of state and local sales taxes.
An erosion in the tax base could prompt states and localities to raise sales
tax rates, which would further whack low-income people.

One needs
little imagination to picture the schemes that would be cooked up to exploit
a permanent Internet tax break. Circuit City could place computer terminals
in its stores and direct customers, once they’ve inspected the goods, to
make their purchases through the company’s website, rather than at the
sales counter. Sign on, provide your credit card number and then immediately
walk over to a sales clerk and pick up your merchandise–tax-free. Say goodbye
to the sales tax–and much of what it funds. And that’s the point:
Keep the Internet tax-free and there will be pressure on states to find other
revenue sources or to slash programs. The cons leading the charge on this battle
would not be sorry to see local governments end up in such a bind.

This fight–in
substance, not rhetoric–is not as much about the Internet as about taxation
itself. Sure, it’s fun to shop online and avoid paying an extra eight percent.
But it would also be a kick to get a paycheck without having to hand any of
it to the IRS. The bottom line is that Internet commerce is not something special
that warrants preferential treatment. But for antitax cons, this issue provides
them an opportunity to strike against their favorite target–taxes–while
portraying themselves as allies of the hip, gee-whiz technology of the future.
Surely, cyberexecs who benefit will be grateful and perhaps generous in campaign
contributions and foundation donations. Here’s a way for the right to prevent
money from flowing into government coffers and to lay a claim to Silicon
Valley bucks. What a twofer.

History Lesson
The
libertarian conservatives of the Cato Institute have one of the busiest fax-blasters
in Washington. Several times a day, I receive press releases from this outfit,
each one referring to yet another initiative to discredit government. To capitalize
on the faux end-of-the-century silliness, Cato recently faxed news of its study,
“The Greatest Century That Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100
Years.” The report notes that “almost every indicator of health, wealth,
safety, nutrition, affordability and availability of consumer goods and services,
environmental quality, and social conditions indicates rapid improvement over
the past century.” That’s a news flash? Couldn’t the same have
been said in 1899?

Cato credits
free enterprise for our 20th-century success, and cites an increase in the size
of government as one of the few negative trends of the past 10 decades. But
if one thinks about their list of positive trends for a moment, Cato’s
view–government bad/commerce good–is undermined. The air, Cato says,
is 97 percent cleaner. But it was government agencies, such as the Environmental
Protection Agency, that forced polluting corporations to clean up. (As far as
I can tell, Cato analysts have never met an environmental regulation they like.)
Wages are up since 1900. No thanks come from Cato for the minimum wage laws
that helped fuel wage growth. Electricity is widespread, indeed, partly due
to government rural electrification programs. Deaths caused by infectious diseases
are down. Let’s give credit to public health agencies. Home ownership is
up. Hail the income tax deduction for mortgage interest–a government subsidy–and
federal and state programs that encourage home-buying. The work week, Cato claims,
is 30 percent shorter. It may not feel that way to most of us, but that stat
should cause us to appreciate unions and workplace legislation. Accidental deaths
are down, yet Cato has never cheered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
and workplace safety standards. The income of African-Americans has increased
tenfold. But would it be that high had there been no affirmative action, no
passage of civil rights laws and no enforcement of these laws? Remember, such
laws were opposed by segregationists as illegitimate governmental interference
in free commerce.

Yes, there’s
been progress these past hundred years. But not because corporations were permitted
a free hand to do whatever they wished. This is a good point to keep in mind
as we enter a new millennium. Cato and other laissez-faire cowboys will be arguing
for fewer rules for the international corporatists of the go-go global economy,
promising that no restraints will bring riches for all. Those truly familiar
with the history of this century know better.

adventures,
will do much to shape the legacy of the man they are each trying to escape,
for how they fare in their respective campaigns will partly determine how Clinton
is viewed in the years to come. If his partner-in-politics and his number-one-defender
are rejected by the voters, that will constitute a judgment of Bill Clinton.
You can toss into the mix the fact that when Clinton arrived in Washington,
his party had firm control of Congress. When he departs, that will likely not
be the case. At best, the Democrats may wrest back the House, albeit with a
slim majority. (The recent Democratic giddiness concerning their prospects in
the House is premature.) As for the Senate, no one in Washington believes the
Democrats can overthrow the Republicans there.

Regarding
the legacy matter, one question is, who will be left standing with the President
at the end of the Clinton era? If you believe the current polls, it will not
be his number two, and it will not be his wife. Granted, these surveys don’t
mean much at this time, but both Clinton spin-offs have shown more problems
than promise in their initial efforts. Gore, of course, had little choice but
to run for president. He was bred to be a presidential candidate. When he worked
at the Nashville Tennessean in the 1970s, his colleagues created a timeline
for Al that had him going for the White House in 2008. Luck–if you can
call it that–made him the party front-runner at the end of the Clinton
years. (In a recent poll conducted for Hotline, the political tip sheet,
39 percent of the respondents identified Gore’s "association with
Clinton" as his biggest problem; his personality ranked second, with 26
percent.) Hillary, though, had options.

By announcing
she will announce, she has defied the naysayers who were predicting she would
chicken out, such as Clinton friend-turned-foe Dick Morris. (My theory: she
went for it just to prove Morris wrong. Another theory: Morris was trying to
push her buttons so she would enter the race and then be humiliated. The Hillary
show is politics as soap opera.) But Hillary, with her recent declaration, has
not achieved independence from her husband. In fact, she has just volunteered
to be something of a stand-in for him, the vehicle for that final political
judgment of Bill Clinton. The wiser course would have been to distance herself
before running for anything. Vacate the White House in 2001. Do television.
Be a university president. Work with the UN. (Jimmy Carter could have provided
some useful suggestions.) Maybe even reside in the state where she wants to
seek public office. Then return to the electoral arena. But that would
have required patience.

Instead,
Hillary elected to capitalize on the victimization that lifted–temporarily,
it appears–her popularity. Had it not been for Monica, Hillary probably
would not now be memorizing the names of Adirondack towns and the lineup of
the Knicks. But being cheated on will only get you so far in New York politics.
That boost is long gone. Rather than running as a Clinton victim, she will be
running as a Clinton. That means she will be carrying much carpetbaggage. With
each day, Clinton’s Monica foolishness and the GOP’s impeachment foolishness–both
of which might have prompted some New Yorkers to regard Hillary favorably–recede.
More and more, this Arkansan-Illinoisan who has never campaigned as a candidate
has to run in New York on her own record and life story, which are intricately
bound to the man she married. A house in Chappaqua does not a separation make.

The day
before Hillary said she definitely would flee the White House for meet-and-greets
in Syracuse, Morris predicted to Paula Zahn that Bill Clinton would be supportive
of his wife’s pre-campaign campaign for a month or two and then, before
it was too late, convince her to bail, so she does not end their White House
days as a spurned senatorial candidate. With her announcement, Hillary indicated
she was not playing by Morris’ imagined script. She took the plunge. Now
she can’t get out without looking all wet. But given how this could well
end, she and Bill might want to listen to Morris one more time.

Knicks Are for Kids?

When I was 11 years
old, I wanted to be Bill Bradley. After all, I was a nerdy hoop-loving white
kid who couldn’t jump, living in a suburb outside of New York City, where
my teachers and parents were already drumming into me the above-all importance
of an Ivy League education. Bradley was a Princeton-educated member of an NBA
championship team whose basketball success was due more to his diligence and
how-to-move-without-the-ball smarts (hey, I had some of that) than innate physical
ability (which I lacked). I was realistic to know I had no chance of growing
up and becoming Wilt Chamberlain. But Bill Bradley…well, that seemed a fantasy
within reach.

It would
be swell to be cheering Bradley on three decades later–especially as he
campaigns to the left by calling for expanding health insurance coverage, campaign
finance reform and gun registration. My inner child would be pleased. But Bradley
has made it hard to believe in him as I once did. It’s not only the memory
of my first encounter with him. (During college, on my first visit to Washington,
I toured Capitol Hill with a friend and stopped by Bradley’s Senate office.
As we gawked at the Knicks-era photos on the wall of the reception area, he
emerged from his office and happily greeted us. But once he learned we were
from New York, not potential voters from New Jersey, his demeanor changed and
he walked away abruptly without saying goodbye.)

It’s
not only that he voted for Contra aid and Reagan’s budget cuts in the 1980s.
It’s not only that when he was a senator he chose not to raise the bold
and progressive issues he now hawks as a presidential candidate who must court
left-leaning Democratic primary voters. It’s not only that he petulantly
refused to name any of his favorite books when I asked him to do so while covering
him in New Hampshire earlier this year. There’s something else. Bradley
is a pain. He can be funny, self-deprecating, inspiring, insightful. He comes
across as damn earnest. But he appears to hate to be challenged. He wants to
play by his rules. (In the Senate, he rarely worked in coalition with progressive
Democrats or citizens’ groups. His attitude, one senator told me, was,
since I know best, I can go my own way. Question him about an action and he
strikes a quiet but sharp how-dare-you stance. I’m not sure I want to be
on a team with a fellow who believes he’s smarter and better than the rest
of us and beyond all reproach.

Here’s
a case in point. Recently, the Center for Responsive Politics released a report
noting that Bradley is a leader among the presidential contenders in accepting
"bundled" campaign contributions. These are donations that usually
come from corporate executives. On the campaign trail, Bradley often slaps himself
on the back for not accepting contributions from political action committees,
many of which are affiliated with corporations. He makes a big deal of this
to prove he walks his talk of campaign finance reform. PACs can give $5000 to
a candidate, and that limit was designed to curtail the influence of any particular
PAC on a candidate. But with bundling, Bradley and other candidates easily evade
this limit. They do so by collecting individual contributions from the top dogs
of a corporation. Often, they find a CEO or another influential executive who
will hit up his or her fellow execs for donations. It’s hard to say no
to the boss. The result is a "bundle" of individual checks that allows
a candidate to gather far more from a corporation than $5000. The largest bundle
of the year so far–$209,500 from executives of Goldman Sachs, the investment
firm–went to Bradley the Reformer. (Bradley, who has staked out the left
in this campaign, has done exceptionally well shaking the money-trees of Wall
Street. Go figure.) Texas Governor George W. Bush placed second in bundling,
with $185,100 from the Houston law firm of Vinson & Elkins.

Bradley
has banked bundles from other companies, and during his Senate years he was
a master of bundling. He certainly is for campaign finance reform and he has
justifiably tried to remind voters of the campaign finance sleaze in which Gore
participated in 1996. Still, Bradley is not shy about exploiting a loophole.
What stinks is that he’s not straight about that. When a reporter asked
him last week to explain why bundled contributions should be considered different
from the PAC contributions he eschews, Bradley replied, "I certainly do
see them as different… It’s a zero problem… It’s often a charge
that’s made that’s without substance because no one can say to me
what [bundling] means."

That’s
not an honest answer. Why decry $5000 PAC contributions, when you are snatching
hundreds of thousands of dollars from people associated with the PAC’s
parent? And anyone who knows anything about campaign finance can explain a bundle.
Prominent campaign finance reform advocates do consider bundling a problem.
But not Bradley. He could say, "I have to play by the rules that now exist
in a sorry campaign finance system and would like to see those rules changed."
However, such an explanation would conflict with his above-it-all sales pitch.
He is unwilling to concede he engages in a problematic activity. Now that certainly
doesn’t render him unique among politicians, and it might be unfair to
turn on him for such an infraction. But Bradley claims to be running to set
a higher standard. Thus, it’s reasonable to hold him to higher standards.
Consequently, his doubledribbles are more disappointing than those of his competitors–and
especially disappointing to one who used to root for him.

Bill Bradley
has been hawking himself as the non-packaged politician, a down-to-earth fellow
with real-American values. His pitch is simple: What you see is what you get.
But he’s also enlisted a claque of Madison Avenue ad execs to cook up an
advertising campaign. The slogan they invented is the Nike-esque "It Can
Happen." Alex Kroll, the adman in charge, caused a day of bad press for
Bradley last week when it was reported that Kroll headed Young & Rubicam
when it was handling the Joe Camel account for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Bradley
has his own Big Tobacco connection! exclaimed the Gore posse (who are still
smarting from the stink raised when Gore retained as his main message man Carter
Eskew, the architect of the tobacco industry’s $40 million propaganda blitz
against the Clinton-Gore-backed tobacco legislation). Kroll dismissed it, noting
R.J. Reynolds was but one of 5000 clients for whom his firm toiled, and the
flap blew over. But what was most significant about this tempest was that Bradley–supposedly
the anti-Slick Willie–had retained the same hucksters who plot devious
ways to prey upon consumers’ insecurities in order to sell them soap, toothpaste,
beer and cars. Not so authentic.

There was
something distinctly inauthentic–Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post
called it "highly misleading"–about one of the first two television
ads the Bradley campaign unveiled. In the spot, a woman named Maureen Drumm
noted that Bradley proposed a law allowing women to stay in the hospital for
48 hours after giving birth and that because of that "my daughter is alive
today." Within seconds of its release, reporters discovered that Drumm’s
comment was not accurate. In 1993–two years before Bradley proposed the
law–Drumm and her first child developed problems 26 hours after the delivery.
But her insurance company allowed her to remain in the hospital and the illness
was treated. She went on to have another child. The daughter who "is alive
today" thanks to Bradley actually is her third child, according
to the Bradley campaign. How so? Bradley’s mouthpieces say Drumm would
have been too afraid to have this child without Bradley’s two-day hospital
stay law–even though she received her two days during her problematic first
pregnancy and then went through a second pregnancy without this law. The Bradley
ad was stretching the truth. Even worse, when opponents and reporters challenged
the Bradleyites on this, Eric Hauser, his press secretary, indignantly pronounced
all criticism of the ad an attack on Drumm. CNN’s Bernard Shaw said the
Bradley advertising campaign is "selling integrity." That’s a
nice way of putting it. But integrity is better demonstrated than sold.

George W.
Bush would seem to be on the winning side of the authenticity gap with Vice
President Al Gore, if only because he is no mystery. Gore, on the other hand,
is a definition-in-waiting: Washingtonian or Tennessean, mountain-climbing jock
or Internet nerd, loyal hanger-on or his own man, dark suit or tan suit, alpha
or beta? Bush is a fratboy who was, like Gore, born into the right family. (Now
that the coke and National Guard questions have been shoved aside, here’s
another query: How did a guy with a C average at Yale get into Harvard’s
Business School?) As for authenticity, Bush’s problem has become authentic
intelligence. To prove he’s no ninny on foreign policy, he gave
a speech on the subject last week. But a more revealing event came a few days
prior to the address, when AP reporter Glen Johnson conducted a phone interview
with Bush about the upcoming speech. During that conversation, Bush read Johnson
a portion of the draft speech in which he promised to take action "if the
Russian government attacks innocent women and children in Chechnya." Johnson
asked if such attacks were already under way. Bush had no answer. He moved the
phone from his mouth and called out to someone, "They are attacking women
and children, aren’t they?" He then told Johnson, "Condi Rice"–that’s
Condoleeza Rice, who worked at the National Security Council for Bush’s
father–"is shaking her head in agreement." It seems reasonable
to expect a presidential candidate to know whether or not Russia is engaged
in a public activity that warrants U.S. threats before he issues such a threat.
Bush was willing to bang his chest without possessing the crucial details–an
authentic Bush moment.

The Republican
with the most serious authenticity problem is Steve Forbes. He ran in 1996 as
a New Jersey horse-country libertarian. He mocked the religious right, refused
to talk the talk on abortion. This time out, he’s campaigning as if he
were reared in the Bible Belt, not the manse country of the Garden State. He’s
gotten religion on abortion, and he’s come out for a new gimmick to push
prayer into public schools. At a campaign stop in Trenton last week, the publisher-candidate
declared his support for state legislation that would require public school
children each morning to recite a 56-word passage from the Declaration of Independence
("We hold these truths to be self-evident…"). This is an idea worthy
of the propagandists of North Korea or the old Soviet Union. What could render
these words more meaningless than rote recitation? This brainwashing bill has
been around for 11 years, yet not until Forbes was trying to corral Christian
rightists into his camp did he endorse it. How authentic is his support?

Authenticity
is much in demand, but short in supply. John McCain, the fierce and earnest
advocate of campaign finance reform, pockets gobs of cash from the special interests
he decries, claiming he has to play by the current rules of the corrupt game.
His message: I may be authentic, but I’m no fool. Pat Buchanan, that devoted
anti-Communist, heartily accepts the endorsement of pseudo-Marxist and political
cult leader Lenora Fulani. Buchanan–say what you want about his hateful
rhetoric and demagogic tribalism–used to be, at least, an authentic ideas
man, one who preached absolutist and fundamentalist values. Now he’s just
another situationalist.

So who is
the most authentic guy in the race? Donald Trump. He’s genuinely
abrasive, crass, egomaniacal, weird and impetuous–and he makes absolutely
no effort to hide any of that. I’m not pronouncing him the most authentic
because I like his soak-the-rich-and-erase-the-debt proposal, his criticism
of the NAFTA treaty, his opposition to privatizing Social Security and his call
for Canadian-style universal health insurance. He does, alas, appear much too
eager to carpet bomb North Korea. With all his hubris, there’s not much
room for hypocrisy. If the public is truly hankering for authenticity, Trump
may be wise to ante up.

Making Kosovo Safe for Gangsters

As President Clinton
was preparing for his trip to Kosovo last week, I came across an e-mail from
an acquaintance who works in the Pentagon and who was recently in Kosovo. His
note was a scathing counter to the official happy-talk appraisals of life in
Kosovo. For example, when Gen. Michael Jackson, NATO’s top commander in
Kosovo, recently vacated that post, he declared, "We have seen a return
to normality" in Kosovo. He also hailed the "successful demilitarization"
of the Kosovo Liberation Army and "the establishment of law and order."
My Pentagon pal’s dispatch neatly sums up the troubles there–and illustrates
the hollowness of the Clinton promises that accompanied the bombing of that
province. With his permission–and in accordance with his wish to remain
unidentified and employed–here are his observations:

"Things
seem much gloomier today than when I was there in the summer. I can only speak
for myself (and the dozens or so various people who told me similar things),
rather than on behalf of the U.S. government, but it is clear the UCK (KLA to
non-Albanophones) is totally out of control, and unlikely to live up to its
commitments on demilitarization. Ethnic Serbs and Roma continue to be attacked
and leave the province. Right after I left the city of Pec (Peja in Albanian)
in the western part of Kosovo, where violence was at its heaviest in the spring,
a group of Serbs leaving the province, only ten miles from crossing into Montenegro,
was attacked by a mob and barely got out alive (though their cars were all burned).
Some of our (US) guys told me that in several villages where the ethnic Albanian
citizens had elected their own mayors and councils, the UCK came in and told
them who their new mayors would be. It’s clear that disenchantment with
the UCK is not limited to Serbs. It also appears that the judicial system is
a sham, since all judges not associated with the UCK have been shot at or have
quit their jobs or have been intimidated into releasing suspects. It’s
possible the UN Mission will turn that around, but I’m not optimistic.
In essence, the international community went into Los Angeles, drove out a corrupt
and brutal LAPD, and left the Bloods and Crips as the de facto government. This
is hardly an original revelation on my part, but the vision of a multi-ethnic
Kosovo is giving way to reverse ethnic cleansing. I agree that we needed to
dp something about the mayhem which Milosevic and Company authored. Unfortunately,
it seems that we drove the Yugoslav military and police out with the promise
that we (the entire international community) could provide a safe and stable
environment for all Kosovo’s citizens. And we just could not deliver."

So much
for the authenticity of that Clinton endeavor.

Even had
this legislation passed, it would not have redressed most of the ills. High-priced
K St. lobbying that skews the legislative process, pay-to-play campaign contributions,
pork-barrel projects that rob taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars–this
corruption is routine. Its exposure causes little discomfort for the culprits.
In explaining why business interests this year are giving equally to the House
Democratic and Republican campaign arms (after heavily favoring the GOP in recent
years), Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee, told the Post that business donors, realizing the Democrats
may win back the House, are hedging their bets: "Major corporate donors
want to be able to enjoy the same access as they do with the current majority…
For them, it’s a business proposition."

They are
buying access–and the Democrats and Republicans are eagerly selling it.
To put it mildly, members of Congress deciding with whom they’ll discuss
legislative matters based on campaign contributions does not seem to be in the
public interest. Yet Kennedy is not bashful in acknowledging this blatant access-peddling.

In another
ho-hum-inducing story, the Post noted that Kennedy and the House Democrats
had assiduously courted Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas gambling king. Wynn was pissed
at the Republicans for failing to smother an antigambling initiative in Congress.
After four years of sweet-talking–Rep. Charles Rangel was chief Romeo for
the Democrats–Wynn offered to donate up to $1.5 million in soft money to
the Democrats’ project to regain the House. How do you think that might
affect Democratic leader Dick Gephardt’s view on casino-related legislation?

But Kennedy
and his band are pikers in moneygrubbing when compared to Rep. Tom DeLay, the
Republican majority whip. DeLay’s been busy pioneering new ways of drawing
dollars into politics as he solicits donations in the $100,000 range for a new
organization that’ll run ads and phone banks to benefit specific Republican
candidates. In so doing, DeLay is undermining the intent of campaign finance
law that limits donations to candidates to $1000 and compels candidates to make
public the names of the high-rollers who support them. He is setting up a middleman
operation that won’t have to reveal the names of its donors, effectively
rounding up anonymous backers who will hold secret IOUs from the GOP. It’s
a throwback to the old days of politics, when behind-the-scenes moneymen provided
cash in envelopes to their favorite pols in return for A-1 service. Democrats’
claim that DeLay’s project is illegal haven’t slowed him.

DeLay has
enlisted a bevy of corporate lobbyists as key members of his money machine.
This is how he operates, according to a profile in the Post: "The
eight-term Houston congressman offers key Washington power brokers a straightforward
deal: a seat at the table to plot legislative and political strategy in exchange
for help in passing the Republicans’ agenda and financial support for GOP
candidates." Could there be a more honest description of influence-selling?
DeLay’s kitchen cabinet includes lobbyists for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
the real estate industry, BellSouth, Microsoft, the insurance industry, UPS
and other corporate interests. And he is blunter than Patrick Kennedy about
his m.o.: "It’s in [the lobbyists’] interest to keep a Republican
majority, and it’s a way to keep a Republican majority and get our job
done. It’s sort of ‘Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’"
Who, then, is scratching for the public?

That question
didn’t stop Schering-Plough. It doubled its lobbying effort to $4 million
a year and deployed lobbyist Peter Knight, a Gore crony, and Linda Daschle,
the wife of the Senate minority leader. The company also has dished out hundreds
of thousands of dollars in contributions to Democrats and Republicans. If this
campaign succeeds, Rep. Henry Waxman remarked, it "would send a simple
message that if you spend enough money and hire the right lobbyists you can
get a law that harms consumers."

Money is
everywhere in the political system. Organizers for Bill Clinton’s presidential
library have collected $20 million in pledges. From whom they won’t say.
This money-shaking is being overseen by Terry McAuliffe, the ubiquitous Democratic
fundraiser who is also raising money for Hillary Clinton and advising Al Gore.
(He was the Clinton buddy who offered to back the mortgage of their new house
in Westchester, before the Clintons snagged a better deal that needed no guarantor.)
Here we have the President receiving generous gifts from individuals who might
have business with the government. The Post reported that San Francisco
developer Walter Shorenstein has pledged $1 million, supermarket tycoon Ron
Burkle may kick in up to $10 million and Fox Family Worldwide chairman Haim
Saban has promised to write a check for millions. There’s nothing illegal
in this. Ronald Reagan did the same when he was in office. But how can the public
be confident that special treatment is not being extended to those who have
promised to help Clinton build his library?

The other
Clinton has also displayed little concern for appearances. The Democratic Party
of New York state is running ads for Hillary Clinton, the undeclared Senate
candidate, using the same soft-money loophole her husband obscenely exploited
during the 1996 campaign. It’s all in the family.

When Elizabeth
Dole pulled out of the presidential race, she groused, "The bottom line
is money." Overwhelmed by the $50 million or so George W. Bush had raised,
Dole was more accurate than perhaps she intended to be. The political system–including
the legislative process–is awash in big-money. The stink, though, has become
so constant, it is hardly noticed.

Bucks Before Brains?
The
most entertaining aspect of the pop-quiz to-do was the reaction from George
W. Bush and his merry band to the news he could not name three B-list foreign
leaders. Bush’s spokeswoman Karen Hughes, maintaining the test was unimportant,
noted that Bush’s top foreign policy advisers could not name the heads
of state in Chechnya, Taiwan, Pakistan and India. How comforting, for those
worried about Bush’s own inexperience in foreign policy matters. He can’t
even hire people who can get him India’s prime minister on the phone without
first having to look up the name. Then Bush, taking a spit-in-the-wind stand,
kept asserting he really was ready to be a global leader. In an interview with
Sam Donaldson, he said, "What I wish he would have asked me…is, what
do I think the United States’ role is in the world. This country has got
a choice to make, Sam. Whether we become isolationists, whether we retreat within
our borders or whether we promote peace. As president, I intend to promote peace."

What candidate
doesn’t believe in promoting peace? A few days later, while campaigning
in Florida, Bush said, "I haven’t memorized every leader’s name
yet, but I know how to lead the world in peace." How’s that? What’s
his experience in leading "the world in peace"? Obviously, Bush has
learned one thing about foreign policy: keep mentioning the word "peace."

Days later,
in South Carolina, Bush said he’d be a better commander-in-chief than war-hero
Sen. John McCain because "I’ve had chief executive experience. I know
how to set goals. I know how to make decisions. I know how to rally people."
Any midlevel business executive who’s read one of those how-to-succeed
pop-advice books can set goals. As for Bush’s executive experience, the
Texas governorship is one of the weakest chief executive posts in national politics.
The legislature meets every other year for a short time, and the state constitution
awards limited power to the governor. Bush was deftly brushed back by a fastball
from McCain spokesman Howard Opinsky: "While Senator McCain hasn’t
fired a baseball manager, we think he has some relevant experience to be the
nation’s commander in chief."

Forget asking
Bush to name who is really in charge in Russia these days. It will be fun to
see him try to keep up with McCain when they eventually debate–especially
when Bush is forced to think on his feet on topics of substance. Does Bush have
the firepower upstairs to handle issues he now knows little about? If not, there
is one fact he can trumpet: the amount of money in his campaign account.

There’s
a chance the Naomi Wolf eruption–which dominated political chat last week–will
be the we-knew-it-then moment for Al Gore’s campaign. The news that Gore
was paying Wolf $15,000 a month (later cut back to $5000) for advice on how
he could transform himself from beta to alpha male reinforced the notion, true
or not, that Gore is lost within himself, that he is not sure who or what he
is, that he has to pay someone to help him develop not a campaign strategy (we’re
used to that sort of political consulting) but a personality.

I have no
problem with Gore picking her brain. She’s a quirky thinker and, no doubt,
might toss out a high concept (The Protective Daddy, The Respected Big Brother,
The Resourceful Cousin) that could trigger a useful idea for Gore. But could
those nuggets be worth $180,000 a year? As described in the press, one of her
missions was to guide Gore in the journey from loyal-buddy beta male to big-ape
alpha male–a process in which he would have to challenge our current commander-in-chief
to prove himself. There was an inherent problem in this project. An alpha male
shouldn’t need advice–certainly not from a female!–on how
to be an alpha man. It’s as if Gore had contracted with a consultant
for guts lessons. For her part, Wolf maintains that she barely mentioned alphas
and betas to Gore and that the advice she provided–for which she was paid
through a cutout–focused on the concerns of women.

Wolf has
a point about Gore’s image problem, but you don’t need new-age mumbo
jumbo to describe it. Forget the Greek letters. Gore’s trouble can be explained
by the Geek Theory of Presidential Politics. Rule #1: Geeks lose. Rule #2: When
the contest is between two geeks, the geekier one loses.

Look at
recent history: Dwight D. Eisenhower vs. Adlai Stevenson in 1952. A general
who had won the biggest war in history against an egghead governor. No contest.
Stevenson proved he was truly a geek by running against Ike again in 1956–and
losing by a larger margin. Then it was John Kennedy and Vice President Richard
Nixon, who established the modern-day precedent of the veep-geek. Only Kennedy’s
Catholicsm made this contest a squeaker. Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater
in 1964? Admittedly, neither stood out as a geek, but Goldwater did wear those
thick-frame eyeglasses. The next race poses trouble for the theory: Nixon running
against Vice President Hubert Humphrey. There is no clear geek gap in Nixon’s
favor. But the Vietnam War played badly for Humphrey. Moreover, Humphrey, not
Nixon, was now veep, making Humphrey the geek by default. Next came Nixon and
George McGovern. The Democrat was a former fighter pilot and no geek. But in
an era of rage and protest, the Nixon campaign succeeded in depicting McGovern
as a fringe candidate. The politics of fear trumped the geek theory that time
out.

Jimmy Carter
and stand-in President Gerald Ford: the faux-President was ridiculed for his
haplessness–a geek trait–and lost to the earnest Southerner who hid
his geekness behind that huge smile. When Carter turned out to be a geek-president–remember
the photo of him collapsing while jogging?–Ronald Reagan bounced him out
of office. Former Vice President Walter Mondale was the geekiest Democratic
nominee since Stevenson. He had no chance in 1984 against Reagan, the brush-clearing
horseman. The Dukakis-Bush contest was a geek faceoff (Bush even had to deny
he was a "wimp") that proved Rule #2. Four years later, Bush was challenged
by Clinton–whose geeky policy-wonk tendencies were trumped by his much-too-healthy
Bubba side–and Bush joined one of the most exclusive geek societies in
the world: incumbent presidents who didn’t get reelected. There was no
geek in the Clinton-Dole duel of 1996: a rascally BMOC defeated a past-his-prime
grump.

There’s
a good reason why Americans don’t like geeks in the Oval Office. The president
is the symbolic leader of the nation, as well as the manager of the executive
branch, though the two jobs don’t necessarily require the same talents.
(Most West European nations sensibly leave the symbolism to royalty or ceremonial
presidencies.) Gore fell into the geek category early in the Clinton years–and
he fell hard. His advocacy of the Internet–a plastic-pocket-protector issue
if there ever was one–didn’t help. His stiffness, which is not apparent
in one-on-one meetings, became an overmilked joke. He became a caricature: the
classic overachieving nerd.

Despite
Naomi Wolf’s ministrations, it’s probably too late for Gore to go
from geek to non-geek. Fortunately for him, his Democratic opponent, Bill Bradley,
displays several prime geek characteristics: he obsesses over obscure issues,
he ponders on his own and not with others, he can be boring. But an athletic
legend is never a geek. Still, what Gore has going for him is that the Geek
Theory does not apply to primary contests. In such races, the electorate is
small enough to allow a geek to succeed. Remember, primary voters did nominate
Bush, Dukakis and Mondale (Steve Forbes, take heart). But should Gore survive
the Bradley assault, he will likely find himself facing either George W. Bush,
for whom the geek-gene has apparently skipped a generation, or John McCain,
a former POW and, consequently, an automatic non-geek. Gore can’t out-alpha
these males. The Wolf hoo-hah makes that clear.

The Wrath Of Jude
Two
weeks ago, I reported on my visit to Pat Buchanan’s book party at a fancy
Washington steakhouse and detailed an encounter with Jude Wanniski, the supply-side
evangelist who now says he is informally advising Buchanan. I noted that Wanniski
was praising Farrakhan as a sincere "man of God"–much to the
chagrin of his conversation partner, John Lofton, a religious-right columnist.
I also related that Wanniski, after I asked him why he wasn’t on the Forbes
bandwagon, explained that those running the Forbes show were "white supremacists,"
adding that he–Wanniski–believed most white people to be benign white
supremacists (Wanniski is white).

Wanniski
did not enjoy my account of our conversation. He sent an e-mail to several heavies
in the media business–John McLaughlin, The Washington Post’s
Howard Kurtz, Bob Novak–decrying me as an "incompetent journalist"
and a "slimeball." He did not challenge any of the quotes, nor did
he defend his positions. He resorted to that all-too common defense of one who
is quoted accurately but inconveniently: he said his remarks were taken out
of context. But what mitigating context can there be for his praise of Farrakhan
or his remarks about the "white supremacists" of the Forbes campaign?

Wanniski’s
attack prompted me to check out a file on him that a reader had sent me after
the initial column. It offered many reasons why one should not take offense
at being slurred by this false prophet. For years, Wanniski, who has a firm
that monitors political and economic trends for money managers, has been courting
Farrakhan. The New Republic reported in 1997 that he recruited Farrakhan
for an annual client conference in Boca Raton, FL. Regarding Farrakhan’s
reputation as an anti-Semite, Wanniski told the magazine: "Farrakhan has
every reason to be disturbed at being on that inferior side of the [racial]
divide. On the white side, there is of course little doubt that pound for pound
American Jews are the most powerful and influential of all segments of our society–in
every professional field of endeavor. In addition, their history asserts a claim
of superiority that has made Jews of all people the most resistant to inter-marriage
with non-Jews."

Routinely,
articles depict Wanniski as a relentless and crazed self-promoter who champions
one hobbyhorse after another and who barrages friends and foes with faxes. One
infamous June 1992 fax to his clients proclaimed, "We can now confidently
predict H. Ross Perot will be elected President of the United States, probably
by a landslide." (Will his advice to Buchanan be as valuable as this prognostication?)
A 1996 profile of Wanniski by Andrew Ferguson in The Weekly Standard
summed him up this way: "Forward-looking. Optimistic. Delusional."
He long ago became an embarrassment to Republicans. George Will, for what it’s
worth, called him a "crackpot." To be slimed by a fellow who cozied
up to Farrakhan–not to mention conspiracy-crank Lyndon LaRouche–and
who perpetuated an economic fraud on this nation with his groundless supply-side
theory is an honor.

There is,
however, an interesting contrast in the candidates’ pitch. Bradley’s
been telling voters: Come journey with me in this noble cause to improve our
nation by cleaning up politics and providing a hand up to those being left behind
in these supposedly flush times. He appeals to those yearning for idealism and
offers them a method for acting on their high-minded desires. Meanwhile, Gore
gets personal and asks–practically begs–Democrats for something concrete:
their votes. Give that to me, he says, and I’ll do right by you, I’ll
go to the mat for you, I’ll stand and fight for you.

It’s
missionary against ward leader. How will this play? You’ll get no predictions
out of me. Voters probably want some of both, though with these two Democrats,
that’s not possible. In the Senate, Bradley wasn’t known for being
a can-do legislator who would collaborate and plot with other Democrats to make
things happen. He tended to his own interests, especially tax reform, Third
World debt, opposing corporate subsidies that cause environmental damage. Gore,
for his part, has never been regarded as one who can inspire. He projects…well,
what? He’s a workaday pol. Several years ago he presided over a White House
conference on global warming–a subject he knows inside out and seems to
care about–and his remarks, before an audience of enviros and climatologists,
were flat. He couldn’t even move those who shared his passion.

So we’ve
got one candidate crying out, "Join me," and the other declaring,
"Help me to help you." On the Democratic side, this is a campaign
of psychology more than policy.

The Republican
gabfest in the first-primary state was less interesting, since lead dog George
W. Bush wasn’t there to bark. I wonder if the GOP voters in New Hampshire
were frustrated by what seemed to be a record-high number of nonanswers from
those who were there. Sen. Orrin Hatch was asked if he’d be willing to
provide uninsured Americans the same health coverage he receives as a member
of Congress, and he rattled off some reply about prescription-drug legislation
and a children’s health care measure. Sen. John McCain was asked how the
criminalization of medicinal marijuana could be justified when alcohol–as
easily abused as pot–is legal. He said he’d like to duck the question–and
then did. When a citizen asked robot/publisher Steve Forbes what he’d do
to make corporations pay the full cost of handling the pollution they generate
(as if Forbes ever would), he complained that not every Superfund toxic waste
site has been cleaned up by the federal government.

The closing
minutes of this sound-off were its most impressive. Each of the five wannabes
was given 20 seconds for a summation, in which each encapsulated his campaign.
Forbes claimed he was for "freedom": freedom from taxes; freedom for
fetuses (but not freedom for women to make their own choices regarding abortion).
And freedom to choose your own doctor. (Will he hand out vouchers so you can
see that Park Ave. specialist written up in New York?) Religious right
activist Gary Bauer bemoaned the "virtue deficit" in public life.
Radio blabber, crazy man and champion gesticulator Alan Keyes pronounced he
would remedy the "moral crisis"–without defining the crisis.
McCain said he was the candidate of "reform"–reforming the campaign
finance system, reforming the military. (To his credit, earlier he bashed Congress
for loading the Pentagon budget with billions of dollars for unnecessary weapons
systems. He didn’t have the guts, though, to name those Republican legislators,
like Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who’ve engineered these boondoggles
to benefit their home states.) And Orrin Hatch snorted that he wanted to be
president because he has "more experience" than all the other guys.

Freedom,
virtue, morality, reform, experience–those aren’t bad choices, and
how convenient that each candidate boiled himself down into one word. What would
Bush have offered? Probably "compassionate conservatism," although
a more honest reply would be, "Money, money, money." It’s too
bad this GOP free-for-all is being drowned out by the ringing cash register
of the Bush campaign. In analyzing the GOP showdown, you don’t need a shrink
to sort it out, you need an accountant.

Still, there’s
a chance McCain, who at times seemed a little uncomfortable during the debate,
will give Bush a run for his money. There’s been much talk in political
circles of how the Bradley-Gore contest resembles the 1984 Democratic race,
when upstart Sen. Gary Hart nearly toppled Vice President Walter Mondale, the
party establishment’s favorite. (Hart’s big problem was that his lean
bank account couldn’t support a national effort after he upset Mondale
in New Hampshire. Bradley, who’s been fundraising a storm on Wall Street,
will not have that difficulty.) McCain is another quirky senator challenging
his party’s bigfoot.

New Hampshire’s
been fertile ground for such endeavors. And Bush, who has nowhere to go but
down, has been falling in the polls there, while McCain has been rising. The
gap is still wide, and Republican voters in the state are not known to be as
contrarian as their Democratic neighbors. Remember, though, that they chose
Pat Buchanan over Bob Dole in 1996. It would be fitting if the only Republican
who crusades for campaign finance reform (forget for the moment that he, too,
raises bundles from the lobbyists and corporations that have business before
the committee he chairs) is the one to knock off the $100-million-man.

As DeLay
wore a crocodile smile, his comrade, South Dakota Rep. John Thune, declared
that the National Park Service had spent $1 million on an "outhouse"
in Montana’s Glacier National Park. DeLay has repeatedly mentioned this
supposed travesty of government spending as he drums up support for his mindless
spending cuts. After all, a $1 million outhouse does sounds outrageous. That
is, until you check.

A call to
the Interior Dept. revealed that what Thune, DeLay and the others have been
calling an "outhouse" is actually a water treatment facility for the
Sperry Chalet, a 17-room hotel/hostel for visitors hiking through the park’s
back country. The 86-year-old chalet lacked a waste-water disposal facility
that conformed to EPA regulations. The park service initially deemed construction
of such a facility too expensive and scheduled the chalet for demolition. (It
had razed four other chalets needing repairs.) But local citizens protested
the destruction of this landmark, and their elected officials succeeded in obtaining
funds to save the chalet. Most of the million-dollar bill covered helicopter
transport of materials to a construction site, which is inaccessible by road.
The $1 million water-treatment facility allowed the Sperry Chalet to remain
in operation without polluting the park.

Spending
that permits Americans to visit and appreciate wilderness sites usually deserves
applause. DeLay’s infantile exploitation of the "million-dollar outhouse"
is proof that he is all too willing to toss the truth into the crapper.

While talking
with Buchanan’s chief fundraiser–who was touting his candidate as
the antidote to the same-old-two-party model–I sympathized with the fundraiser’s
smash-the-status-quo sentiments, but voiced disagreement with his boss on a
host of issues. "Such as?" his wife interrupted. All the social issues,
I replied: gay rights, school prayer, abortion. "Have you ever seen an
aborted 23-week-old fetus?" she shot back. I politely said that I had seen
all the photos, had gazed at my infant daughter in utero courtesy of
sonogram technology, and that this was clearly not an argument in which either
one of us would persuade the other.

But she’d
already locked and loaded: "If you haven’t seen a 23-week-old fetus
in person, then you don’t know what you are talking about. I’m tired
of hearing about the Holocaust when there is a genocide of infants going on
right now." As for gay rights, she asked how I would feel once the gene
determining a predisposition toward homosexuality was discovered and people
began aborting fetuses possessing that genetic ingredient. "Then you’ll
see all those gay rights guys backing Pat on abortion," she declared.

I came up
with an excuse to disengage and moved on. Just as I escaped the anti-abortion
rant, a sixtysomething man I didn’t know read my name tag and accused me
of being prejudiced against Christians. He said that years ago I’d written
"that article" about Oliver North in which I’d assaulted the
colonel for being a Christian. I had no idea to what he was referring, and told
him I’d written several pieces on North, including a profile during his
unsuccessful U.S. Senate run in 1994. My complaint with North, I said, was that
he was a convicted Iran-Contra felon, a lying religious-right ringleader, a
Constitution-shredder who’d managed a secret (thus illegal) war in Central
America during which he supported a band of rebels that committed torture and
other human rights abuses. That’s all. "You used the word ‘Christian’
as code," he shouted at me. I have nothing against Christians, I said;
I married one. "Don’t give me that," he went on. "You’re
against Christians."

I left him
at that point and chatted a few minutes with Pat’s sister and former Equal
Time cohost, Bay Buchanan, who was all geared up for her brother’s
defection from the Republican Party. It was obviously an all-but-done deal,
and she gleefully reported she would be running his Reform presidential campaign,
displaying not a whiff of reluctance about saying goodbye to the Grand Old Party.

Yo, Jude!
The
highlight of the evening was when I stumbled into a conversation between Jude
Wanniski, the former Wall Street Journal editorialist and Reagan-era, supply-side
tax-cuts evangelist, and John Lofton, a religious-right commentator. (Promotional
material for Lofton’s newsletter proclaims, "Support Your Local Calvinist!")
Wanniski, for some reason, was defending Louis Farrakhan, maintaining the Nation
of Islam leader was neither a racist nor a nut but a sincere "man of God."
Wanniski said that he’d reached this judgment after watching 100 hours
of Farrakhan videotapes and having met with him several times. Lofton was flabbergasted.

Yes, right-of-center
politics has gotten interesting. Wanniski–the Reaganaut who was one of
the first to encourage flat-taxer Steve Forbes to run in 1996 and then served
this year as a tax-cut-adviser on Dan Quayle’s team–is now talking
up Farrakhan and informally advising Buchanan, who has struck an alliance with
African-American pseudo-Marxist Lenora Fulani (who has her own anti-Semitism
problem), who heads a wacky political cult that’s infiltrated the Reform
Party.

After Lofton
walked away, I asked Wanniski why he wasn’t in Forbes’ corner. After
all, supply-siders and flat-taxers inhabit similar turf in the conservative
cosmos. I could not have anticipated his answer: He told me his main beef is
that Forbes ignored Wanniski’s 1996 advice to put John Sears, Ronald Reagan’s
1980 campaign manager, in charge of his own effort and instead placed his campaign
in the hands of "white supremacists." Honestly: This former Reaganomics
guru talked about the Forbes crew as if they are no different from David Duke.
He then added that while most white people are benign white supremacists, Forbes’
handlers (now and in 1996) seem to be more prejudiced than your average whitey.
I never did get an explanation of why he believes this, but I wouldn’t
mind seeing the headline: "Buchanan Adviser Calls Forbes Campaign Racist."

A Buchanan Split
A
few days before the Buchanan event, The Washington Post gossip columnist Lloyd
Grove reported that several prominent Washingtonians would not be attending
the gathering. Perhaps that’s why Grove was cold-shouldered by Buchanan
at the event. Indeed, Buchanan failed to draw much of the media elite. John
McLaughlin showed and provided a supportive slap on the back. Brit Hume of Fox
News Channel was there. John Sununu, another former from-the-right host of Crossfire
(last noticed helping Quayle with his presidential campaign) paid his respects.
Editors of conservative magazines The American Spectator and Human Events were
in attendance, but I spotted no one from Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard.
(Kristol had been enthusiastically bidding good-riddance to Buchanan for weeks.)

Buchanan
has caused something of a split in the conservative movement: The neo-neocons,
led by Kristol, want to drum him out of the right and their Republican
Party; the classic cons are more forgiving, even if they don’t support
Buchanan’s bolt from the GOP. Political opportunists, like George W. Bush
and the leadership of the Republican National Committee, begged him to stay,
not on principle but because they feared he might swipe votes from the Republican
standard-bearer.

Buchanan’s
most sympathetic ally of late, Pat Choate, was at the shindig, too. Choate’s
a pro-labor, anticorporatist policy wonk who ran for vice president with Ross
Perot in 1996 and has been Buchanan’s leading advocate within the Reform
Party. The two agree on opposing corporate-friendly trade pacts like NAFTA.
But liberal-minded old friends of Choate had confided to me that they can’t
understand his bonding with Buchanan, so I asked him how he could’ve saddled
up with a fellow who has uttered hateful and denigrating remarks about minorities,
AIDS sufferers and women. Choate tried to make sense of it for me. He said he’s
pro-choice and a supporter of gay rights–two standpoints Buchanan would
deem blasphemous–but that he was happy to work with both Buchanan and Fulani
because each agrees on the pressing need for "political reform." Only
if various ideologues join together, Choate asserts, will there be a chance
to threaten corporate-dominated politics-as-usual. Given that the Republican-controlled
Senate that day was once again torpedoing the most modest of campaign finance
reform measures, it was hard to argue with him, but, I noted, putting Buchanan
in charge was too high a price to pay for discomforting the Washington establishment.
"We’ll have to keep talking," Choate said with the smile of one
who believes he has found the answer.