Jewish World Review Nov. 4, 1999 /23 Mar-Cheshvan, 5760
David Corn
Same Cola, Different Bottles
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
IT WAS COKE VS. PEPSI. Without much fizz. Last week in New Hampshire, Al
Gore and Bill Bradley squared off in what turned out to be more a taste
test than a debate. With similar policy priorities—both have plans to
expand health care coverage; both advocate campaign finance reform; both
are pushing modest antipoverty programs—the two were mostly marketing
competing styles. Bradley was the earnest professor, Gore was the
hard-charging politico. Do you want your president to be the
less-than-exciting fellow by the chalkboard at the front of the room or
the guy next to you waving his hand too eagerly because he thinks he
knows the answer?
At the town hall meeting, both men played their parts well, yet there
are reasons to be skeptical of each. After serving in the
Campaign-Funds-R-Us Clinton administration, Gore is hardly credible as a
champion for change on that front. Bradley keeps promoting his big, bold
ideas—ending racial discord, vanquishing child poverty—but his 18 years
in the Senate were a profile in cautious eclecticism. With so little
clash on the fundamentals, the Democratic race is a personality
contest—not how much, but what sort—and there is no clear leader.
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.
JWR contributor David Corn, Washington Editor of The
Nation, writes the "Loyal Opposition" column for The New York Press. His latest book is Deep Background.
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