Here we are at the beginning of the mean season in presidential politics, the final–nasty–warm-ups. It’s a time of backroom rumors and threats and spin-doctored confrontations via fax, e-mail and television ads. Candidates are crisscrossing the “early” states–Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, Arizona–and they have ads on the air in most of them. It’s an oddly intense moment, with candidates steeling themselves for a series of debates, the first primaries and the massive, decisive Super Tuesdays that follow.
In the ground war, the front runners are using tactics adapted to their styles. Bush is leaving the hand-to-hand combat against McCain entirely to others. Vice President Al Gore, in a departure from the usual practice, is carrying the attack against Bill Bradley on his own, scorning Bradley’s “big idea” health-care plan in an attempt to demonstrate some passion, or a pulse. Gore has become the newest junkyard dog of politics. In radio ads, playing widely on urban, black-oriented stations, Gore is portrayed as “a fighter” who will save Medicaid and the other Great Society monuments of the LBJ era.
Bradley is crying foul, accusing Gore of “using race or ethnicity to try to scare people.” But there is evidence that the attacks are taking a toll. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, Gore has reversed a steady slide that began in the spring, and has lengthened what was a 15-point lead among Democrats nationwide in late October to a 22-point lead last week. Gore now leads Bradley by 49 to 27 percent, with 24 percent undecided. Gore is doing better in the matchup against Bush as well, and now does better against him (losing 49 to 43 percent) than Bradley (who loses by a 52 to 41 percent margin). Gore remains a weak candidate, but for the first time in months he is gaining ground, not losing it. In other words, mean seems to work–at least for Al, at least for now.
Mean won’t work for George W. Bush, but it does for his aides. He’s a genial fellow by nature (though he, too, can be short-tempered) and he knows that Republicans–recently personified and led by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole–can no longer afford to look nasty. “I’m a uniter, not a divider,” Bush proclaims in his TV ads, which feature him smiling warmly, nuzzling his wife and promising to work hard on education and the needs of those “left behind.” Even his new spot calling for higher Pentagon spending and a new missile-defense shield is told gently, through the eyes of a little girl who fears a dangerous world.
But W is as hungry to win as his father was in 1988. And, like his dad, he knows how to hire and inspire the help to deal with the rough stuff while he floats above the fray. That’s how Bush Senior did it in 1988. The mastermind of that campaign was the late Lee Atwater. W had the office next door. Now W’s campaign manager is Karl Rove, an operative who began his career in politics side by side with Atwater and has mastered the psy-war tactics of messing with the enemy’s mind.
Atwater’s doctrine of war was simple, if a little cryptic. “When I’m in one of those big old crowded hotel meeting rooms,” he said, “I always take the shortest route out the door.” In elections, that meant you sweet-talked (or intimidated) potential candidates out of the race, and you discredited those who remained as fast as possible, by whatever means necessary. An election wasn’t about issues or civics. It was all about being the last man standing.
Bush is busy trying to become just that. He and Rove’s first objective was to keep as many rivals out of the race as possible–in this case by piling up early endorsements, commitments and cash. The aim of the fund-raising was not only to get money for Bush, but to prevent others from getting any. One rival, Lamar Alexander, protested, and went up with an ad over the summer in Iowa complaining–without mentioning Bush–that no one should be allowed to buy the GOP nomination. Swiftly an independent group called the Republican Leadership Council (RLC) attacked Lamar for his “negative TV bean ball.” It was soon off the air, and Alexander quit the race a few months later. No one accused the Bush campaign of ordering the hit. But most RLC officials were, or have since become, leading Bush contributors or supporters.
The group was back in the news last week, carrying out a pre-emptive strike against Steve Forbes. The billionaire publisher had purchased air time for a new series of ads in New Hampshire–and they were rumored to be tough “comparative” spots. Lo and behold, the RLC bought time on the same stations to air a spot admonishing him to play nice, and not go after this year’s front runner (Bush) the way he went after Bob Dole in 1996. The Bush campaign and the RLC denied any collusion, but leading RLC figures include members of Bush’s executive committee and New York Gov. George Pataki, who wouldn’t mind being chosen as Bush’s running mate.
For Bush, it’s a great dynamic: everyone wants to impress you by taking out your rivals. McCain may be the only serious one left–and the attacks are well underway. They began last month in Arizona, when GOP Gov. Jane Hull told The New York Times that she and McCain had endured several confrontations that exposed him as a hothead. Hull is a Bush supporter, but the Bush campaign denied that it had put her up to it. After Hull piped up, so did Michigan Gov. John Engler–another vice presidential wanna-be. He commented publicly on McCain’s volatile temperament, even though he doesn’t know the senator well. That was too much–or too obvious–even for Rove, who told Engler to pipe down.
Now the Senate wants in on the act–and it’s going to be next to impossible to finger anyone in the Bush campaign for fomenting anti-McCain sentiment. Many senators despise their colleague from Arizona–without being egged on from Austin, Texas–for his crusade in favor of campaign-finance reform. But the whispered criticism goes beyond accusing McCain of hypocrisy (he uses corporate jets and rakes in contributions from the industries he oversees on the Commerce Committee) and ill temper (the stories are legion). “The word I hear coming back is ‘unstable’,” said Hagel, “and that’s outrageous.”
It’s costing McCain money. Several big-time contributors, Hagel says, report that GOP senators are warning them away from McCain because he’s “unstable.” Hagel asked Coverdell to call Bush, who sent assurances that he “had nothing to do with it.” Indeed, Bush has only nice things to say about McCain, but the governor hasn’t told the boys in the Senate to lay off. Nor has he called Hagel–or McCain, who has said little, and who doesn’t dare get angry in public.
