Sunday, July 19, 1998

Forbes may be top GOP contender

By Morton Kondracke

Steve Forbes scores just 7 percent in the latest poll of Republican presidential contenders, a third of what Texas Gov. George W. Bush gets. Yet I wouldn't be surprised to see him on the 2000 GOP presidential ticket.

Probably he won't head the ticket. Forbes has never held an elective office, and Republicans are far more a resume party than the Democrats, who occasionally will toss aside their early front-runner and take a flyer on a surprise candidate like John Kennedy, George McGovern or Jimmy Carter.

Not since it picked Wendell Willkie in 1940 has the GOP done anything remotely madcap. Its fights have pitted the leading moderate -- Dewey, Eisenhower, Rockefeller, Bush -- against the leading conservative -- Taft, Goldwater, Reagan -- with the party choosing one or the other, not an outsider.

And most years, the GOP has simply picked the man next in line. It almost broke the mold in 1976, when Reagan nearly upset unelected President Gerald Ford. But in the end it couldn't bring itself to do so. Reagan, of course, got the nod the next time.

This time around, the party is freer than it has been for years from the iron rule of primogeniture, but Bush's lead shows that orderliness, not to mention inheritance, still counts for a lot.

Bush has his father's name. He's governor of the nation's second biggest state. He's popular there and will doubtless score a big election victory. He'll have money, a claim on the party's top political talent and all-important front-runner status. He'll doubtless have a solid conservative national message to go with his solid-conservative Texas record.

But he could slip, creating an opening for somebody else. Those most able to pick up the lead would seem to be Dan Quayle, who as a former vice president would be next in line if it weren't for doubts about his gravitas, and then Lamar Alexander, a former governor and cabinet secretary who has scarfed up key support in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Jack Kemp, as a former veep candidate, would have been high on the turn-to list if he had performed well in 1996, but he didn't. After that, the field consists mainly of people who have never run before -- Sens. John Ashcroft (Mo.) and John McCain (Ariz.), Reps. Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and John Kasich (Ohio) -- who'll have a hard time being taken seriously for more than veep.

Forbes, however, has distinct advantages that might allow him to force his way into serious contention for the top spot if Bush flunks and, right now, looks to be the natural candidate to win primaries and get tapped for veep if Bush lasts.

Among Forbes' assets are a radical, but positive, message that wows the party faithful, lots of money, prior experience as a candidate and a tireless capacity for work. He's not a great orator, but he can hold his own.

In 1996, Forbes had one main proposal -- the flat tax -- which he claimed would make the economy flower. This year, he's still with that idea, but he's added others designed to empower individuals and -- not incidentally -- shrivel the federal government.

In an interview, he said the usual GOP method of cutting back government reminds him of "trench warfare in World War I -- huge battles and thousands of casualties for eentsy-weentsy gains that get lost the next year."

He says he favors "a flanking action using tanks, planes and rockets." He refers to the flat tax -- 17 percent above the first $36,000 of income, which would be untaxed -- plus "personalized" Social Security and medical savings accounts that would let individuals control their own retirement and health spending.

Forbes says he'd actually allow people to choose whether to pay taxes according to the existing Internal Revenue Service code or go with the flat tax, pay full FICA or invest for retirement and rely on HMOs or Medicare or go to portable MSAs.

He bets everyone would choose the new option, "thereby undercutting the three biggest sources of political power in Washington."

It may be voodoo economics, but my guess is that radical tax reform will be nearly as basic a requirement for GOP candidates in 2000 as an anti-abortion position now is, and Forbes dominates the franchise.

He's also figured out how to please the religious right by advocating a gradualist approach to banning abortion -- outlawing partial-birth first, requiring parental consent next, banning most second- and third-term procedures after that, etc.

Beyond the message is Forbes' money. He spent $30 million of his own in 1996 and raised $5 million in contributions. He wants a better ratio this time, but he's still willing to spend his own money and he won't take federal matching funds.

He's been campaigning more or less non-stop since 1996 and is better organized than anyone except Alexander, whose message is less distinctive.

If Forbes won the GOP nomination, the country would be in for the most interesting policy debate in memory during the general election campaign. Even if he didn't win the top spot, he might force the debate. Wonder of wonders, the new century might actually begin with a battle of ideas.

Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.

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