Gop’s Fine Line: Playing Dirty, But Staying Clean

So what’s it going to be: boxing gloves, or brass knuckles? For months, Bob Dole’s campaign chiefs have waged a spirited debate over the best way to go after Bill Clinton. They have been tempted to take the low road by attacking the president’s character, but they fear a voter backlash. They have also been tempted to take the high road by engaging Clinton on the issues, but they fear that voters will get lost in the details.

So they appear to have worked out a compromise. They’ll hit both roads.

At the convention last week, with much of America watching, they are trying to hit Clinton above the belt - faulting the incumbent for his record on taxes and welfare. Tuesday night, even while Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson Texas did fault Clinton for “drugcoddling … values-crushing” behavior, her main purpose was to sell Dole as a candidate who would keep his promises.

But, as the old saying goes, politics ain’t beanbag. And it’s certainly not about policy. It’s about winning and losing.

There is considerable evidence, confirmed by Dole sources who insist on anonymity, that the campaign is fully prepared to launch personal attacks on Clinton in autumn TV commercials, if Dole continues to lag badly in the polls.

Some veteran Republican strategists believe that such a step will be necessary. Ed Goeas, who handles GOP congressional candidates, said here Tuesday, “We should go off on Clinton over things like Whitewater and Filegate. We need to stir the pot. There are layers of skin that you can peel off. Get the negative information out there. Just be on the mark in how you frame it.”

It’s a sensitive topic among the Dole people, and that explains their public reticence. Some dread the prospect of a negative assault, and hope that Dole can gain ground by staying above the fray. Indeed, Tuesday night’s anti-Clinton segment was designed to highlight the president’s two vetoes of welfare reform, his hefty 1993 tax hike, and his failure to balance the budget.

Sure, there have been some personal jabs at the First Couple, particularly on Monday night, when former President George Bush praised his wife Barbara as “a woman who unquestionably upheld the honor of the White House.” But none come close to 1992, when Pat Buchanan called Bill Clinton a draft-dodger, and when party Chairman Rich Bond accused Hillary Clinton of writing a 1974 article that “likened marriage and the family to slavery.”

“What we’re doing this week is ‘friendly-negative’ stuff,” said a Dole official. “We’re going for the moderate voters out there. The people who are supporting Clinton, but whose support for him is soft. There’s a lot of that. To get them, we have to separate Clinton’s rhetoric from his record. He talks like a moderate, but we have to put him back into the liberal box. You can’t do that by calling him names.”

Hence, the issue-based attacks on Clinton Tuesday night; witness Gov. John Rowland of Connecticut, who said, “He promised to lower taxes on working Americans. But instead of cutting taxes, he raised them, for nearly all Americans.” And they skewered Clinton with his own words, using videos to chart his change of positions; this is arguably more effective than any words spoken by a Republican. Said one strategist, “Let Clinton be Clinton.”

But veteran analysts don’t really believe the Dole campaign will stick to the high road for long. They expect a change in direction - a decision to “go nuclear,” in the parlance of campaign pros. If Dole’s tax-cut plan fails to close the gap with Clinton, there may be no other choice.

Douglas Bailey, founder of a political newsletter and a former Republican consultant who specialized in campaign commercials, said Tuesday, “They can’t (go heavily negative) this week, because everything that’s done here is tied, in the public mind, to Bob Dole and Jack Kemp.

“But what they’ll try to do later is go after Clinton in a way that won’t make people think badly of Dole and Kemp. It’s not in Dole’s interest to personally attack Clinton, with words from his own mouth. And Kemp has already said that he doesn’t intend to be an attack dog. So you use your advertising. It’s sort of expected, to prove your manhood.”

In the Dole camp, some of the thinking goes like this: Dole’s tax plan might not sell at a time when most people seem happy with the economy. So bring on the negative ads; Dole could travel the high road, while his ad guys take all the heat. That was how it worked in 1988, when Bush operatives Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes wore the black hats.

In fact, the Dole ad team has already stockpiled a lot of raw material - past drug use by White House staffers, and the misuse of FBI files (complete with the damning words of FBI director Louis Freeh). And there are always independent political operatives, with no ties to the campaign, who would need no encouragement to go after Hillary Clinton again.

Yet some Republicans definitely have qualms about Dole going nuclear.

Ed Rollins, a key Ronald Reagan strategist in 1980 and 1984, said Tuesday: “If the focus is on character, they are going to lose big. There certainly are a lot of Republicans who want to lay out all the dirty details, rumors, and innuendos. But the country in 1992 basically lowered the bar and said, ‘We’re willing to elect someone who has gone on ‘60 Minutes’ and said that he didn’t have a perfect marriage.”

Bailey later added, “There is always the chance of a backlash, and there ought to be. If you’re trying to play up your own candidate (Dole) as a man of great integrity and character, and he proceeds to run a negative campaign, then it’s a risk and a problem. At what point would the public believe he has crossed the line?”

And the Clinton team assumes that the high-road criticism of the Republican convention is merely a prelude to the storm. Sources here say that Clinton plainly expects personal assaults, particularly on his wife.

Joe Lockhart, the Clinton campaign press secretary, said Tuesday: “It would be smart politics for them to stick to issues, but they’ve got a problem - most Americans like how the economy is going.

But even if Dole’s ad people play rough, it remains to be seen whether Dole himself can curb his aggressive instincts and stick to the high road.

The other day, he did make a promise, of sorts: “I’m not going to go after Clinton personally - not going to go to after his lack of a war record.”