Gop Just Bob, Bob, Bobbing Along
Bill Clinton does understand how to use the bully pulpit. Just when the American public was beginning to think of his administration as a bunch of oddballs with a weird affection for the Arch Deluxe, the president gazed at his TV set and found salvation: Saddam Hussein.
Iraq’s president-for-life sent troops into the northern Iraqi town of Irbil last week, ostensibly to quell an uprising by the Iranian-backed Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The incursion doesn’t seem to have broken any United Nations resolutions, but no matter. Clinton fired two dozen cruise missiles toward southern Iraq just to show we still can push Saddam around.
Behold the “September surprise.” The president ordered up a $100 million campaign commercial which has the practical effect of declaring his reelection effort a “no-fly” zone.
That strategy fits a pattern: Democrats have been arguing lately that Republicans have a patriotic duty not to criticize the president.
The woman described by former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo as “the incomparable Tipper Gore” delivered a sermon on civil society at the Democratic convention. The vice president’s wife hinted that explosions of partisan passion are as unseemly as, say, toe-sucking.
Two days later, Clinton said his minions would acquit themselves honorably on the field of battle. He promised an election based on ideas rather than insults.
That, of course, was a lie. Less than 24 hours after the president’s vow, his running mate, the incomparable Al Gore, was busy taking a machete to the Republican team, which he referred to as the “Dole-Gingrich-Ginzu” ticket. For those of us who love political rhetoric, this was a wonderful barb - crafted as lovingly and viciously as a Don Rickles insult.
Gore’s jab wasn’t unique. Cuomo announced at the convention that Democrats represent hope and Republicans, despair. Dick Morris, then a Clinton political adviser, ordered orators to fire heat-seeking epithets at the party of Abraham Lincoln and hounded keynote speaker Evan Bayh so zealously that Bayh eventually stopped returning his calls. (This was before the Star revealed that Morris takes the hounding business literally.)
The president approved these attacks, thus exposing his civility talk as a ruse - an attempt to persuade Republicans to lay down arms and march cheerfully into the Democrats’ abattoir.
Believe it or not, that tactic is working. Bob Dole and Jack Kemp pulled within five to seven points of the Clinton-Gore team after the Republican convention and then simply suspended hostilities.
Both men have refused to appear on Sunday television talk shows (including mine) since the GOP convention. They have traveled around the country but haven’t spent time wooing local television stations or newspaper editorial boards. They have given fewer major interviews than Dick Morris himself.
At the same time they were “going dark,” the president was directing his gravitational pull toward every microphone, camera and word processor on the continent. He signed bills on the South Lawn of the White House, delivered sniffly odes to anybody who seemed in need of a good cry and gathered up bushels of free publicity.
The press followed him everywhere but the men’s room, and in return, he served up watchable events and quotable orations. His unstinting pursuit of votes, along with the GOP going AWOL, has left the Dole-Kemp team down 21 points - the largest gap yet.
As the Republican convention “bounce” has turned into a death spiral, GOP pollsters are starting to talk openly of a Democratic Congress.
At a time when Republicans want their leaders to set a bold agenda, the Dole-Kemp duo seems rudderless, punchless and clueless. Americans like Dole’s ideas but don’t trust him to follow through. They expect him to behave like a military hero, not St. Francis of Assisi.
While Clintonistas remain pathologically on-message, Dole seems easily distracted. He told the Chicago Tribune he’d stress budget cuts over tax relief, thereby destroying his attempt to don the mantle of Reaganism. He proposes inserting the military into the drug war - forgetting the nation’s sacred commitment to keeping warriors out of domestic affairs. He talks longingly of the past - thereby accentuating concerns about his age. One wants to know: Who’s advising this guy? Dr. Kevorkian?
Republicans say the president is shameless when it comes to seeking re-election. Well, here’s a news bulletin: That’s a good thing. We like our chief executives ambitious and engaged. Most of us have a healthy disdain for politicians who don’t get riled up about matters of national progress or survival.
As the real political season dawns, Republicans can’t distinguish between being civil and being doormats - and have decided to be both.
With enemies like that, who needs a foil like Saddam?
MEMO: Tony Snow is a Detroit News columnist.