Mr. Clean: John Ashcroft has a sterling ethical record and a socially conservative base. But does he have what it takes to win?

National Review, March 23, 1998 by John J. Miller

Mr. Miller is NR's national political reporter and author of The Unmaking of Americans, which the Free Press will publish in May.

Sen. John Ashcroft was hit with the biggest scandal of his political career in the middle of his second term as governor of Missouri. One evening in May 1990, his 12-year-old son needed to look at a book on Elizabethan England for a school assignment. Librarian Monteria Hightower, contacted at home by a security officer eager to help his boss, agreed to drive over and unlock the front door of the state library, which is closed on Sundays. Andrew Ashcroft spent about two and a half hours conducting his research.

The next day, Miss Hightower complained to the press about the inconvenience. Newspapers reported the story, a few editorialists huffed about abuse of power, and Ashcroft quickly apologized. Most folks in Missouri just laughed. Ashcroft's squeaky-clean standards were well known. "If ever a state had a less exciting governor than John Ashcroft," a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch griped shortly after the library incident, "I never heard about it."

Ashcroft's ethical record has placed him in a strong position to condemn President Clinton for the latest scandal and, hence, to get his own first real boost in the nascent 2000 presidential race. Not many politicians aspire to be the next Jimmy Carter, but Ashcroft does at least in this sense: he too wants to be the unimpeachable straight-shooter who restores people's trust in the Presidency in the wake of a scandal-ridden predecessor.

Ashcroft has big assets in a GOP primary: he served two terms as governor in a Democratic-leaning state, he has a national profile as a senator, and, perhaps most importantly, the Religious Right regard him as one of their own.

Indeed, in the months ahead, Ashcroft has a legitimate chance to emerge as the most electable conservative in the presidential race. But he faces formidable obstacles as well. With a Boy Scout's haircut and a choir boy's politeness, Ashcroft does not make a forceful impression. Some politicians dominate a room; he fades into the wallpaper. His campaign will have to be a victory of doggedness over style, as he works to recreate the Reagan coalition from his base among social conservatives.

Ashcroft first started turning heads in Washington after charges became public that Monica Lewinsky had turned the President's. Most Republicans maintained a code of silence when the former intern first hit the papers, but Ashcroft went into attack mode. "Mr. President," he said at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, held in January, "if these allegations are true, you have disgraced yourself and the Office of the Presidency, and you should resign now."

The speech drew a strong response from its audience, and an even stronger one from C-SPAN viewer James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and the second most popular figure among conservative evangelicals (just behind Billy Graham). "This is the message!!" Dobson wrote in a note faxed to Ashcroft. In February, in a highly publicized speech decrying the GOP's reluctance to press the social-conservative agenda, Dobson threatened to bolt the party. He even briefly criticized Ashcroft for not speaking out more vigorously against gay rights.

But Dobson generally views Ashcroft with favor. "He's a fine man, and he's been a powerful voice in the Senate," says Dobson, who may endorse political candidates for the first time this fall. Dobson's speech was just another indication of the restiveness of the Religious Right, which Ashcroft could turn to his advantage. In the presidential race, Dobson makes it clear that he prefers Ashcroft and Gary Bauer, whose Family Research Council is a spinoff of Dobson's Colorado-based Focus on the Family. Dobson won't make any formal announcements until Bauer decides whether or not to run.

Like Bauer, Ashcroft isn't just another politician courting evangelicals; he is part of the team. He's the son of a minister, and an accomplished gospel singer with a striking baritone voice. "Ashcroft isn't simply singing their tune," says one GOP strategist. "He's been playing in the band for a long time." He meets with a small devotional group every morning in his office before the day's business begins, and he likes to give visitors copies of his ten-song tape, The Gospel (Music) According to John, which he composed and produced himself. "He is one of the most prayerful men I know," says longtime activist Paul Weyrich, an Ashcroft supporter.

At a Christian Coalition meeting in February, a sizable plurality of organization leaders named Ashcroft as their choice for 2000. Pat Robertson, who wants religious conservatives to rally around a single candidate early in the process, is reportedly looking for a way to endorse Ashcroft soon. Ashcroft's advantage over other candidates of the Religious Right -- Robertson in 1988, potentially Bauer in 2000 -- is that he's a professional politician who has been winning votes all his adult life.