Let the race begin: President Clinton looks more vulnerable by the day - but which Republican will be in a position to seize the opportunity? - includes related article on Republican National Committee survey of Republican supporters - Cover Story

National Review, April 4, 1994 by Wick Allison, William A. Rusher

AFTER Tom Dewey went down to that surprise defeat by Harry Truman in 1948, Democratic boss Jim Farley cracked about the Republican front-runner, "The people had been thinking of Dewey as the next President for so long they decided it was time for a change."

No such problem for Republicans in 1996. There is no front-runner: no George Bush awaiting coronation, no Ronald Reagan riding a whirlwind, no Gerald Ford sitting uneasily in the Oval Office, no Richard Nixon pulling strings from his Wall Street law firm, no Barry Goldwater leading a party rebellion. Nor is a front-runner likely to emerge between now and the Iowa caucuses in February 1996.

As matters now stand, the 1996 Republican presidential contest is the most heavily front-loaded in history. Seven big states have scheduled their primaries almost immediately after New Hampshire's: New York on March 5; Texas and Florida on March 12 (along with some other Southern states); Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio on March 19 (probably to be joined by Pennsylvania); all capped off by California on March 26. All told, these states will provide 75 per cent of all the delegates to the convention--and they'll all be committed before April.

Most of these states--California, with it's winner-take-all primary, is the most notable exception--award at-large delegates to the statewide plurality winner and congressional-district delegates to the winner in each district. Convention rules require that, to have his name officially put in nomination, a candidate have at least 10 per cent of the total number of committed delegates, and that they come from at least five states.

Some analysts, such as Jack Germond, think this front-loading and the convention rules make Iowa and New Hampshire even more important than in the past, establishing the leaders early in the race. Others aren't so sure. Several candidates may fragment the big states, in which case the race could go down to the convention wire. So many big states, spread geographically so far apart, will mean that a candidate must have massive amounts of money, organization, and media exposure in order to dominate. Candidates may instead decide to target specific states, or specific districts within states, hoping to rack up enough votes to keep them in the running and secure them a seat in some ultimate smoke-filled room.

Another factor militating against New Hampshire's dominance is William Weld, the energetic and popular governor of Massachusetts. If Weld runs--as he is almost certain to do-- he should be able to count on a good showing in his neighboring state, where many commuters owe their jobs to his aggressive pro-growth policies. But Weld's pro-abortion and pro-gayrights positions are anathema in the South, and will also certainly be challenged in the ethnic enclaves of the Rust Belt states. If Weld wins New Hampshire, therefore, all that free media hype may end up meaning nothing at all. (Even so, as the "moderate" Republican governor of a big Eastern state, Weld may wind up with the vice presidential nomination, if the delegates choose a solid conservative for the top spot and want to honor the tradition of "balancing the ticket.")

Who Has the Money?

SO MANY big-state primaries bunched so tightly together will make this the most expensive presidential nomination race in the nation's history. Some Washington insiders are saying it may take as much as $35 million to make a respectable run. Fundraising, therefore, is the first hurdle on the track.

Federal election laws limit contributions to $1,000 per person and $5,000 per PAC. To qualify for federal matching funds a candidate must raise $5,000 in each of twenty states from individual contributions of up to $250. These requirements haven't been updated since 1973, and shouldn't present a problem to most candidates. The first serious test of who's really in the running and who isn't will be who has passed the $10-million mark by the end of 1995.

By that measure Robert Dole, as Senate minority leader, clearly has the best post position. He can reap a lifetime's worth of returned favors. The 1994 Senate elections are likely to make him even more of a factor in legislation than he is today, and so the special interests will be lined up at his door. If Dole is shrewd (and he is), he'll use this largesse to claim the Midwest and wage all-out campaigns in free-for-all primaries like New Hampshire and Florida, while making forays into small states to pick off the odd delegate or two. With any other primary schedule, and if he were ten or fifteen years younger, Dole might be unstoppable.

If the Royalist Theory of Republican politics is right, he may be unstoppable anyway. This theory maintains that while Democrats usually opt for new faces as their presidential candidates, Republicans tend to favor those who have "earned" the nomination by running before and being good soldiers when they lost. Holders of this theory point to Reagan and Bush, both of whom lost bids for the nomination (two in Reagan's case) before winning it, and Nixon and Dewey, who were both nominated a second time after a defeat in a previous general election. On such a basis Dole and Jack Kemp should be the leading contenders.