Well, maybe. But maybe not. It’s just possible that a traditional slash-the-liberals campaign-with nothing else to soften it or give a sense of optimism and energy-will seem too jagged, too desperate and too obviously beside the point to work in 1992. Polls gyrated wildly after the GOP’s Houston convention. Some had Bush gaining much ground-due, in large part, to attacks that had undermined Clinton. But NEWSWEEK’S Poll, conducted later than most others, showed that Bush had gotten not a bounce but a dribble. Clinton’s lead had been nicked by only 3 points, from 17 percent on Aug. 14 to 14 percent last week. Inside the Astrodome, 45,000 Republicans-most of them white, well educated and well off-cheered wildly while Bush and Dan Quayle lit into Clinton, the Congress and the Democrats with grim fury. Outside the hall it didn’t play so well. The NEWSWEEK Poll showed that voters resented the personal attacks on Clinton and his wife, Hillary, and thought less of the Republicans and barely more of Bush after watching what amounted to a four-day festival of fear and social antagonism.
Grim as it was Bush had little choice. On the big question-the economy-he has little more than gimmicks to offer, and his advisers know it. In Bush’s term, economic growth rates have been lower than at any time since Herbert Hoover. That fact was underscored when dismal new unemployment figures were released on the eve of his speech, while the dollar plunged to new lows on world markets. Bush is trapped by the weak economy he presides over. The income-tax and spending-cut proposals in his acceptance speech were nothing more than righteous talk-a way, one aide said, to “sharpen the contrast” with Clinton. But Bush can’t seriously offer the supply-side elixir of unconditional tax cuts; the deficit is already too large. Nor can he list the specifics of the “mandatory” spending cuts he supposedly wants; that would mean whacking Medicare, college loans and other goodies that the middle class has come to expect.
What Bush can do is attack Clinton, portraying him as someone who wants to raise taxes and is eager to expand the role of government in American life. The Bush strategy calls for encouraging the fears of the suburban heartland-fears about congressional Democrats, about the metropolitan “them,” about Clinton as their front man. The unsubtle message: however bad things may be now, a dangerous liaison of Democrats on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue would be worse. The approach is based on the theory that voters, especially suburban “swing” voters in the South and elsewhere, have minimal respect for government, even if they receive benefits from it. The symbolism of holding the GOP convention in the Astrodome couldn’t have been more apt: a mecca of the New South, surrounded by acres of parking lots and suburban tracts, in a city where zoning laws were once considered a communist plot.
Now that the Soviet Union is gone, Bush must look for new devils. If taxes can’t scare ’em (especially since Bush moved his lips in 1990), then “social issues” will have to. Invoking them is a more complicated task with Clinton on the other side: the Democrat favors the death penalty, for example, and last week he won the endorsement of the National Association of Police Officers. So there was a new sum-of-all-fears list of GOP demons on display after Houston: gay and lesbian “activists,” “radical feminists,” bureaucrats, “environmental extremists,” teachers’ unions, trial lawyers, the media, Hollywood, even Woody Allen. Gays seem like an especially tempting target to the Republican right. With the battle lines on abortion already drawn, the growth stock for fundamentalist groups looking for new recruits (and funds) is gay-bashing.
High on the new enemies list is an old demon, the media. In Houston, “Blame the Media” T shirts did a brisk business-and not all of them were bought by reporters. Aside from explaining away bad news, the Bush team is trying to guilt-trip the Big Media (especially conservative publishers and network owners) into easing up on the White House. “Right now Bill Clinton has 15,000 press secretaries,” groused Bush adviser Roger Ailes. “At some point even you guys will have to get embarrassed.”
The newest entry was a group that Americans have long loved to hate: lawyers. The organized bar has historically been friendly to Republicans, but trial lawyers-the ones who actually do battle in court-have swung their support and their checkbooks to the Democrats. The reason is that insurance companies and doctors want to limit jury awards. The trial bar has gone to the Democratic-controlled Congress to protect its profitmaking. In a fight between doctors and lawyers, Bush is happy to side with the doctors.
Focusing on interest groups like the trial lawyers helps Bush get around a basic problem. The link between Clinton and Congress is not obvious, since the Arkansas governor was never more than a college intern on the Hill. The rhetorical answer is to tie Clinton into the “hopelessly tangled web of PACs, perks, privileges, partisanship and paralysis” that plagues the Democratically controlled Hill. There is just enough truth to Bush’s alliterative litany to force Clinton to respond.
Bush’s aides want to target the social issues with the precision of a smart bomb. Their aim is not to sweep the nation-no one is even thinking landslide this year-but to round up the bare minimum of 270 electoral votes. In the must-win state of Michigan, Republicans will aim at Clinton’s running mate, Al Gore, who wants tougher clean-air regulations on autos and a higher gasoline tax. In the Bible-belt states, such as North Carolina, the GOP will play an MTV video of Clinton telling teens that if he had to do it all over again, he’d inhale. To try to make California competitive, the GOP will make a farmer’s bogeymen out of “environmental extremists” determined to save the gnat catcher and the spotted owl.
The Clinton campaign, which prides itself on its quick response time, hit right back after Houston. Clinton bitterly called Bush a “great fearmonger” and accused him of having lied about Clinton’s record. The latter was an eerily familiar charge-once leveled by the man who introduced Bush in Houston, Sen. Bob Dole. Indeed, Bush’s bashing had its risks, both in its method and its message. Polls showed that the convention’s attacks on Hillary and its stridency on abortion may have opened up the gender gap again. Marilyn Quayle seemed at times to look down on anyone who had ever been divorced or any mother who worked outside the home. (Barbara Bush was less judgmental, accepting a family by any definition.) The other risk is that voters, already turned off by traditional polities, would find the attack strategy too blatant. At least the Clinton crowd hopes so. “Real voters care about real issues,” says George Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s deputy campaign manager. “Swing voters especially are turned off by negative politics.”
The Democrats also insist that Bush’s tax-cut proposal only shreds what was left of his tattered credibility. “When we told a focus group about it, they laughed out loud,” claims Stephanopoulos. (The NEWSWEEK Poll showed that 65 percent of voters viewed the tax cut as “just politics.”) The Democrats regard demon politics as a diversion-and trust that voters will, too. Hanging from the wall in the “war room” of Clinton’s Little Rock campaign headquarters is a sign reminding Democrats to stick to their message. It says THE ECONOMY, STUPID.
In fact, the economy is not the only central issue. Of equal importance to voters is the basic question of trust. Bush, Clinton charged, is “personally untrustworthy. How can we trust him? He promised 15 million new jobs; he’s 14 million short. He promised no new taxes.” Yet Bush was at his best last week playing the role of Trusted World Leader, reminiscing about the glory days of Desert Storm and the fall of the Berlin wall. By recalling his night watch on the USS Finback, the submarine that rescued the 20-year-old aviator in 1944, Bush was able to subtly remind voters that his opponent slid past the draft during Vietnam. Trust is also code for Clinton’s alleged womanizing, though Bush was not as crude as the delegates on the convention floor who carried signs saying IF HILLARY CAN’T TRUST HIM, HOW CAN WE?
The voters may not buy Bush’s message, but they should have no trouble understanding it. After months of drift and incoherence, there is not much doubt that the Bush campaign will be, in campaign lingo, “on message.” Baker will demand it. He has left no doubt in the White House or in campaign headquarters that he is in total control. When the president first suggested that Baker come over to serve as “counselor” to the president, leaving Samuel Skinner as chief of staff, Baker said forget it. He wanted Skinner and his sidekicks out. Skinner was duly shuffled off to a nonjob in the Republican National Committee, and his aides were shown new quarters far from the Oval Office.
Baker’s own team-Bob Zoellick, Dennis Ross, Margaret Tutwiler and Janet Mulling-will virtually take over the campaign (not to mention the executive branch, which this fall will be one and the same). Campaign chieftains Robert Teeter and Fred Malek will still be in the loop but shorn of decision-making power. Ross is a policy maven, while Zoellick is a combination speechwriter, enforcer and sounding board for his boss. Tutwiler, an old hand at beguiling reporters, will be communications czar while Mullins handles politics. Resurrected from political purgatory is budget director Richard Darman, who couldn’t balance the budget but can offer clever political tricks to his mentor B Darman, predictably, who cooked up the taxpayer-checkoff gimmick in Bush’s acceptance speech.) There will be a few other voices in the room, like Darman’s polished young No. 2, Bob Grady, but Baker will brook no dissent. “In the White House, they’ll be scared to death because the body bags will be right outside the door,” said one recent victim of the purge.
No matter how clever or disciplined, Bush’s campaign will not succeed unless enough voters share his basic belief about the role of government at home. For such an upbeat man, it is a basically downbeat view. Bush doesn’t think that government can do a whole lot to make the economy better; the best thing Washington can do is stay out of the way. Clinton, for all his neojargon, retains a dogged belief in the liberal faith that government is the engine of betterment. The waffling polls show that the public is still not sure whom-or what-to believe. But for all the sideshows and fear mongering, the basic choice is clear enough. The voters have 70 days to decide.
If the election were held today, whom would you vote for?
Current 39% Bush 53% Clinton Aug.13-14 36% Bush 53% Clinton
For this NEWSWEEK Poll, The Gallup Organization telephoned 750 registered voters Aug. 21. Margin of error +/- 4 percentage points. “Don’t know” and other, responses not shown. The NEWSWEEK Poll copyright 1992 by NEWSWEEK, Inc.
Did Republicans at the convention spend too much time or too little time on the following:
Targeting Bill Clinton 54% Too much 7% Too little Targeting Hillary Clinton 52% Too much 6% Too little Targeting gays 37% Too much 11% Too little Targeting feminists 31% Too much 11% Too little Talking about their plans for the future 13% Too much 39% Too little
NEWSWEEK Poll, Aug. 21, 1992
