Now, with a year to go before the primaries, Alexander is only one of at least a half-dozen GOP marathoners at the starting line. (New Year’s resolution: Never use horse-racing metaphor again.) Usually this would repel even a political junkie like me. It’s still too early. I can’t think about John Ashcroft while nursing a hangover. But anything beats contemplating Linda Tripp in the well of the U.S. Senate.
Actually, a long Senate trial, while horrible for Bill Clinton and the country, would be even worse for the Republican Party in 2000. The longer Monica Madness lasts, the more extreme the GOP looks, and the less time the party has to develop a winning agenda on issues the public cares about. Victory for the Republicans requires the advent of postsex politics, where the press stops fighting the last war and shuts up about sex for a change. That’s entirely possible in the next election, but only if the Republicans shut up about it first.
So far, they won’t–or can’t. The GOP’s self-destructiveness is now rivaling the president’s. The anger and hypocrisy feed each other and poison the Republican well. After all, ““character’’ inquisitions certainly won’t hurt Al Gore or Bill Bradley in 2000. But they could damage Gov. George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, who all but announced his candidacy last week. The care with which the two of them handle personal baggage may condition Campaign 2000–and change the way character is covered in the post-Lewinsky era.
Bush’s approach is to simply refuse to answer any specific questions about his years of premarital carousing. He says the children of baby boomers are only hurt by the truth of their parents’ youthful behavior. The ““buzz off’’ response is refreshing, even for the press. But it’s much easier to execute if he can avoid saying that Clinton must answer for his every sin. Down in Austin, the governor can duck a short Senate proceeding by refusing to comment. A long trial, by contrast, will tax him. Bush might eventually be pinned into arguing that while the details of his own past are nobody’s business, the details of the president’s must be endlessly dissected for signs of perjury.
Whatever happens in Washington, ““buzz off’’ will eventually fail, and Bush’s wild years will be chronicled, probably by some online magazine nobody has ever heard of. If Clinton’s poll numbers are any indication, the specifics won’t hurt Bush with the public. But too much reticence could let rumors fester. And should he show any surliness in responding, the focus would quickly shift from his past behavior to his present political skills.
There’s an assumption afoot that Republicans, being more orderly than Democrats, always nominate the front runner. That’s not quite right. Republicans give it to the candidate whose turn it is. Bush has by far the most GOP establishment backing, but it’s not his turn. It’s not anybody’s turn, which is why it’s still open. They aren’t getting much press yet, but both Dan Quayle and Steve Forbes–the Democrats’ dream ticket–have significant conservative support.
If the right wing is split, watch McCain. Despite his solid conservative credentials, many party pros dislike him because of his maverick positions supporting campaign-finance reform, fighting the tobacco industry and cultivating the press. They also fear him because, after more than five years as a POW in Hanoi, he fears no one. Even if it gets him in trouble occasionally, McCain’s candor might be the perfect antidote to the Clinton years. And he has a story to tell that makes the other candidates look like pygmies. This fall, Random House will publish ““Faith of My Fathers,’’ McCain’s harrowing and heroic life story. Recall how the 1995 Colin Powell boomlet began. And nearly 40 years ago, John F. Kennedy’s campaign was launched by a story of his PT-109 heroics in The New Yorker.
McCain’s autobiography stops with his release from Vietnam, just before he began cheating on his first wife, who was seriously injured in an automobile accident while he was imprisoned. He worries that this wild period of his life will hurt him in the campaign. He shouldn’t. Who will hold it against him? Even so, when asked, McCain will openly discuss his adultery as well as other family problems. His shrewd strategy for hastening postsex politics has been to study the way the media work: No secrets, no story.
Still, a long Senate trial would hurt him, too. Having to vote on dozens of motions would highlight his own sexual history and make it harder for him to focus on the target he identified last week: Gore’s fund-raising in 1996. Beyond that, his biggest handicaps are that he is running from the Senate, a far worse perch historically than a statehouse, and that he has no immediately identifiable base in the party.
McCain’s best hope is to tap some of the Jesse Ventura alienation vote and fashion a more inclusive GOP, especially in open primaries that let Democrats and independents vote. Most important, to make a race of it with Bush, he’ll need to exploit his status as a war hero to expand ““character’’ beyond the narrow confines of social and sexual sins. If he accomplishes that, he’ll help American politics even if he loses.
