Al Gore’s acceptance speech in Los Angeles didn’t read well on paper; it lacked the elegance and wit of George W. Bush’s Philadelphia story. Yet by energetically working his way through “the issues” so maligned by world-weary journalists, Gore connected with the kitchen-table concerns of ordinary Americans and at long last developed his own political profile. If the underlying motivation for those leaning to Bush is “change for change’s sake,” the average voter’s bottom line on Gore is increasingly: “He’ll do.”
That’s the living-room view. Out in Campaignland, a spirited debate is underway among the pros about Gore’s populist theme. On one level, it’s contrived. Gore isn’t much of a populist in his heart, and “The people versus the powerful” is the most artless slogan in memory. It may also be wrongheaded strategically, failing to notice that nowadays many aspiring “people” want to be “powerful” and will resent Old Democrat blandishments. But on balance, it should work. Bush’s massive tax cut does overwhelmingly favor the wealthy at the expense of health and education. When that becomes widely known, it will hurt Bush.
So Gore needs to keep the focus on substance. The problem for him is that most of the media like politics a lot more than policy. They prefer the horse-race photo finish to the sheep-dip of details. The horse race always dominates, but this year–because of the extreme closeness of the contest–the coverage of polls and tactics may block out everything else. The more focus on how the candidates are doing in Michigan or Illinois, the less on their differences over taxes and Social Security.
Bush needs to keep the focus on personality and civility. The problem for him is that in the end, presidential campaigns are not about the tone of presidential campaigns. They’re about the lives and futures of the voters–in other words, the issues. Bush has laid out plenty of specifics, but they aren’t terribly popular. If they were, you’d be hearing more about them in his stump speech. His challenge is to turn every Gore thrust on the issues into an out-of-bounds personal attack. That won’t be easy, because even with their distaste for nastiness, voters want and expect a vigorous debate.
After convention, Bush chides gore for divisive tone, read the lead headline in The New York Times. This is not a winning theme for Bush. “Chiding” can itself be “divisive”; you can’t easily go negative on someone else’s negativity. And voters don’t go for aggrieved victimhood. They want candidates to punch back. Of course, when they do start smacking each other, then the hand-wringing will resume.
All of this suggests that while the electoral map clearly favors Bush, the thematics of the race are a much closer call. To change horses, the voters need a powerful argument for why to dismount. The burden is on the challenger to make it. Ronald Reagan didn’t win in 1980 because of his leadership style; he won because he argued successfully that Jimmy Carter had run the economy into the ditch. Bill Clinton didn’t win in 1992 because the people trusted his character; he won because he argued successfully that he cared more about the voters than George Bush did.
Bush the Younger has two basic arguments for taking power: integrity (“I’ll restore the honor and dignity of the Oval Office”) and the “squandered promise” of Clinton and Gore. There are problems with both arguments. “Integrity” depends on morphing Gore into Clinton. But even a new Monica Lewinsky story on the day of his acceptance speech did nothing to slow Gore’s convention bounce. For Bush to hit hard on Gore’s 1996 visit to the Buddhist temple might also seem like old news–and too negative. As for litigating the last eight years, this is a total loser for Bush. When he told the Los Angeles Times recently that the country was worse off than it was in 1992, he made a little-noticed gaffe that Gore will exploit in the debates.
But those debates offer great opportunities for Bush. Just ask Bill Bradley. Given what he went through, Bradley might be expected to think Bush will get clobbered by Gore. He doesn’t. “Bush has not given specifics [on Social Security], so it’s much more difficult for Gore to get at Bush than it was to get at me,” Bradley said in Los Angeles last week, remembering how Gore picked apart his health-care plan during the primaries. And the expectations game works for Bush. “I’d rather be the guy [in the debates] who can’t add two and two,” Bradley says. “All Bush has to do is have one or two moments where people go, ‘Phew! I guess it’s going to be OK!’”
The best bet for Gore is that Bush gets lost in the fog of complexities and looks unpresidential. The best bet for Bush is that all of the arguing back and forth about issues just sounds like white noise to voters. Then the focus might turn back toward the men themselves. Gore was wrong about one thing last week. A presidential campaign is, in fact, a “popularity contest.” The compensation for him is that “popularity” is a product not just of personality but of credibility. It’s those itty-bitty “itys” that will decide this thing.
