Gentleman callers - 1996 presidential candidates - Editorial

National Review, Oct 23, 1995

THERE is a specter haunting the two-party system -- the specter of the Outsider. How conservative Republicans handle it may determine their chances of recovering the White House.

The specter takes two forms, representing different social and ideological tropisms. Colin Powell is a political outsider only by virtue of his profession, and his race. Otherwise, he is a man of the establishment, with a solid, sensible demeanor. The Powell boom could become what Alice Roosevelt Longworth called the boom for Wendell Willkie: a grass-roots movement sprung from the grass of a thousand country clubs. Ross Perot is yang to Powell's yin: cranky, irascible; the village eccentric plus $5 billion. Politically, the possibility of a Powell candidacy attracts liberals -- Anthony Lewis has practically been handing out bumper-stickers -- and many of Powell's pronouncements (on affirmative action, abortion, welfare, and even racism) justify liberal enthusiasm. The Perotistas, by contrast, lean strongly, if erratically, to the right. Perot, for all his wealth, is a trailer-park populist.

If Powell runs as a Republican, he will change the debate, not, as liberals imagine, by pulling it to the left, but by forcing the other candidates to be more explicitly and intelligently conservative. Bob Dole will no longer be able to count on conservative support in return for speeches dropped here and there like calling cards. He will have to show an understanding of the issues he has taken up, a mastery of the relevant arguments, and a passionate delivery. Phil Gramm, Pat Buchanan, and Steve Forbes will have to do more than trump Dole by saying that they are further right. In a foretaste of the general election, they will have to shape their arguments in ways that refute or co-opt the arguments of moderates and liberals.

All the career Republicans will have to study one another's positions. The ideal candidate, depicted as a bandage-swathed "Invisible Elephant" on the cover of NR's June 26 issue, would have the foreign policy of Dole, or Richard Lugar; the government-cutting determination of Gramm; the tax-cut fervor of Forbes; the gimlet-eyed analysis of affirmative action and uncontrolled immigration of Buchanan; the cultural sophistication of non-candidate William Bennett; and the geniality of the Gipper. Of the elephants out there, the one who wins the nomination will be the one who most closely resembles this composite.

Then will come the challenge of wooing back the Perot voters, whether they have rallied to a new party or are staying glumly home. Figuring out from Perot's pronouncements what they want is a daunting task -- how much Larry King can anyone be asked to watch? But some preferences are clear. The Perotistas want term limits, campaign finance reform, protectionism, and (a little-reported datum from their last conclave) immigration controls. On protectionism, a conservative Republican has to bite the bullet and tell them why they're wrong. Campaign finance reform is not high on any realist's list of priorities, but Republican failure to come up with something has helped keep the Perot movement alive. Timidity on immigration and reneging on term limits have done much more. Only if the GOP moves on these fronts will the Perot voter return to his natural home, on the right.

Both the Powellian and the Perotist are bemused by an old idea: the fantasy of politics without politics; of national discussion unencumbered by ideology. (I'd just lift the hood and look in the engine, said Perot.) It is a fantasy, because ideas and ideals provide the only guidance through the welter of events. Without theory the facts are dumb. The way to appeal to the apolitical mind is not by retreating from politics, but by making a political case with skill, and savvy, and heart.