WASHINGTON -- Last year the politicians produced a Congress about nothing. This year they're producing a presidential campaign about nothing.
Even in the more heavily contested Republican campaign, the conflicts are muted, the differences few, the tensions almost nonexistent. The candidates agree the clashes should be on the issues, not on personalities. But the candidates also agree on the issues.
They agree so much that it's possible to cut whole paragraphs from one speech and paste them seamlessly into another candidate's speech. Take these three paragraphs:
"Whoever the next president may be -- he or she -- should see to it your taxes are cut, our defense is rebuilt, drugs are reviled and our schools are put back in the control of parents."
"People ask me what are the first things I would do as president, what are my priorities. There are three of them at the core of my campaign. They are: to fix public education; to improve family incomes by lowering taxes and securing Social Security; and to strengthen national defense."
"It is conservative to cut taxes and compassionate to give people more money to spend. It is conservative to insist upon local control of schools and high standards and results; it is compassionate to make sure every child learns to read and no one is left behind."
Key players
The speech excerpts are from, respectively, former Red Cross president Elizabeth H. Dole, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. But it almost doesn't matter. Simply take away two giveaway words -- the "she" in Mrs. Dole's remarks, the "compassionate" in Mr. Bush's -- and the excerpts would fit neatly in any of their speeches because they're all saying precisely the same thing.
"The issue agreement is extraordinary, and that's because the race is defined by two front-runners who haven't taken positions on issues," says Thomas D. Rath, a Republican national committeeman from New Hampshire and a top Alexander adviser. "That's why we're left with saying: Here is my life, here is my resume, here are the principles I stand for."
Indeed, Mr. Bush and Mrs. Dole -- the two candidates generally believed to be leading the GOP pack -- are remarkably unencumbered by positions on national issues or foreign affairs. Mr. Bush, the son of a Republican president, just won his second term as governor but has been in an elected office only 50 months. Mrs. Dole, the wife of a GOP presidential nominee, has served in two Cabinet positions but has not sought elective office since she was chosen May Queen and student-government president at Duke University.
Sketchy information
Their records and recent speeches yield only the barest outlines of their views. They believe in giving states and local governments more power and prerogatives, in cutting taxes and in boosting defense. So do all Republicans. So, too, does President Clinton.
"Some of these candidates aren't saying anything," says Edward Gillespie, a veteran GOP operative advising the presidential campaign of Rep. John R. Kasich of Ohio. Adds Greg Mueller, who is advising publisher Steve Forbes: "This campaign will eventually be driven by a search for a blueprint for issues for victory. Right now that's not happening. A lot of people are taking a lot of time to figure out where they stand on issues, and that's feeding this idea that the Republicans have nothing they stand for."
Most the Republican candidates are opposed to abortion rights. They disagree somewhat on the details, and they disagree substantially over whether Republicans should stress the issue. Mr. Bush does not think they should. Former Vice President Dan Quayle, conservative activist Gary Bauer and Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire believe they should.
On trade, most of the candidates are free-traders. Political commentator Patrick J. Buchanan is not. Mr. Kasich fought to kill the B-2 bomber. Sen. John McCain of Arizona supports an overhaul of campaign financing and is one of the most fervent battlers against tobacco. That's it. None of these things is causing much of a stir. None probably will.
And so the great irony of the struggle to win the GOP presidential nomination in the years of conservatism's ascendancy is that the campaign is merely redeeming the slogans of two politicians.
One is former Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee. He was ridiculed for saying that the principal question in presidential politics was competence, not ideology. The other is former Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama, who ran for president three times. He tormented Richard M. Nixon and Hubert H. Humphrey in 1968 by proclaiming there wasn't a dime's difference between the two of them. It turns out Mr. Dukakis and Wallace were both right.
David M. Shribman is Washington bureau chief of the Boston Globe.
Pub Date: 3/25/99