Party in search of a leader - Republican Party

National Review, Feb 1, 1993 by Geoffrey Morris

ALLEGED conservative Kevin Phillips predicts that the Republican Party will soon "dip into factional fights." If Phillips is right, round one begins later this month at the meeting of the Republican National Committee, when the new party chairman is selected.

But judging by the opinions of committee members who plan to vote on January 29 in St. Louis, Phillips and the liberals are likely to be disappointed. Early speculation had focused on who would be the best spokesman for the party--a question tailor-made for in-fighting. But committee members now seem in general agreement that a different sort of person is needed for party chairman--"someone who knows how to get a speaker and organize a fund-raising dinner," as Joyce Tehres, Maryland's state chairman, puts it. The task of the party chairman, in this view, is to keep Republican organizations from Pittsburgh to Pasadena alive, informed, and together.

It would be nice to have a chairman who can go on TV and explain party positions. But it's the grassroots that need the attention. And of course there's no shortage of party spokesmen who can work effectively with the new party head--Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, Bob Michel. Committee members seem to agree that the party should let its parts speak for the whole.

Morton Blackwell, Republican activist and Virginia committeeman, argues that over the last decade or so the RNC has gone from training and educating local party activists and volunteers to being "media-driven and consultant-ridden." He recalls the Sixties, when party leaders organized precinct groups, women's groups, youth groups, community groups. The remedy, says Blackwell, is to return to this program, informing it with the ideas that put Ronald Reagan into the White House.

None of the top contenders for the chairmanship would disagree. The early front-runner was Haley Barbour, a committeemen from Mississippi. After running for the Senate in 1982, Barbour worked as political director in the Reagan White House. He has since become that despised Beltway creature, the Washington lobbyist.

Being a sitting committeeman gives him the greatest access to the 165 voting members (three from each state plus Guam, Puerto Rico, D.C, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa). An experienced and adroit political organizer and a good public speaker, he is personally well liked.

However, Barbour is being criticized for, among other things, donating $1,000 to the campaign of Democratic Representative Bill Tauzin (ACU: 70) in Louisiana in 1991. The donation, Barbour says, was to encourage conservative Democrats to cross the aisle and form a Republican majority. Tauzin, however, was also a major supporter of the cable-regulation bill, for which Barbour was a paid lobbyist. President Bush's veto of the bill was his only one to be overturned, which is not quite a party rallying point. Barbour also until recently was receiving $7,500 a month from CBS to lobby on telecommunication mattors.

New Jersey committeman David Norcross argues that Barbour is a dedicated Republican and "he more than anyone can bring the disparate branches of the party together." So should being a successful lobbyist disqualify one from the position? Let's just say Barbour stopped being considered the front-runner after his lobbying record was neatly packaged and sent to interested parties.

Spencer Abraham, Federalist Society founder and National Republican Congressional Committee head, has been working the phones and making personal visits in anticipation of the St. Louis vote. Abraham argues that he has the most, and most impressive, experience. He took over chairmanship of the Michigan Republican Party in 1983 and laid the groundwork for the election of conservative Governor John Engler. When he left in 1991 the GOP had gained control of the state senate. This past November, with Engler riding high in the polls, Republicans also split the formerly Democratic state assembly.

When Abraham took over as chairman of the NRCC in 1991 he terminated contracts the committee held with 57 consulting firms. Although the GOP lost the White House, under Abraham's tutelage, Republicans gained ten House seats in 1992.

Beltway conservatives back Abraham. But the RNC electorate consists of state party leaders, most of whom live and work outside the Beltway. And to win, the candidate must get a majority. If the first ballot does not produce a winner, then the back-patting and vote-haggling begins.

Washington politicking went on nonetheless. Abraham campaign posters were nailed to telephone poles outside the White House last week when RNC members were meeting privately with Administration officials. And Dan Quayle has come out vociferously for his former deputy chief of staff.

Other prominent conservatives-- any one of them would have been a terrific chairman and an even better official spokesman--who had had hopes for the post bowed out for various reasons: Vin Weber because of his close ties with leading presidential contender Jack Kemp; Bill Bennett and Pete du Pont because of their own possible 1996 candidacies. As the field thinned, John Ashcroft popped his name in. Ashcroft, the outgoing Missouri governor, has some big-name backing--Pat Robertson and Governors William Weld (Mass.), Carroll Campbell (S.C.), and James Edgar (Ill.). He didn't announce his candidacy until his departure from office in early January, but his intentions were widely known before that-evidenced by a prescription for the future of the party he wrote for the Washington Post and by his prominence at the December Republican Governors' Association meeting.