March 24, 1999

Heeere's Liddy.... and St. Steve

Presidential campaigns are exercises in self-parody. There is no way a candidate can repeat his or her index-card-friendly message (read: shtick) over and over without descending into caricature. In this pre-preseason of presidential ambitions--with candidates tripping over each other to announce their campaigns--the marvel is that some wannabes start out their White House bids already packaged as punchlines. Elizabeth Dole unveiled the formation of her exploratory campaign during an event set up like a talk show (but without Matthew McConaughey or Jennifer Aniston on the couch next to her). In her best Oprah groove, she worked the crowd, microphone in hand, and discussed her own merits. Her chief asset? "I am not a politician," said the two-time Cabinet member who served in three other high-ranking administration jobs and who has been married to Bob Dole for twenty-four years. She's so not a politician, she has refused to date to take questions about her ideas on policy issues, including abortion. (The "on the issues" section on her web site is thinner than the "about Elizabeth" portion.) And when she was doing her Donahue vamp--reviving the gimmick that went down well at the San Diego Republican convention of 1996--she made sure to hit her marks for the best camera shots. Not a politician? She's Rosie without opinions. During her first appearance at the plate, she reinforced the obvious strokes: too smooth and possibly too shallow.

Steve Forbes also played to his weakness on his first official outing of Campaign '00. The geekiest of the GOP bunch, he announced his candidacy via video footage on his web site. This was supposed to position him as a man of the future. Instead, billionaire Forbes, who possesses a spooky robotic nature and comes across as a fellow who each morning is wound-up and dispatched by a Wall Street cabal, appeared even more mechanical than usual in the jerky Internet broadcast. His performance was reminiscent of Max Headroom. Maybe Forbes doesn't exist. He's a hologram, a soundcard. In any event, it's easy to imagine why he made such a big deal of his Internet announcement. Many 'net denizens are libertarian in their economic views, and they could well be taken with Forbes' vow to slash government and institute a simple, flat tax (which would--what a surprise!--be a great deal for the rich). But Forbes may have trouble bagging netizens, for during the past year he has turned--shazam!--into a firebrand social conservative.

When Forbes stumped in 1996, he dismissed the Christian Coalition. He once accurately pegged the group's leader, Pat Robertson, as a "toothy flake." In the 1996 primaries, Forbes wiggled like a worm around the abortion issue. At the time, Forbes looked like a fellow who was running to advance a policy idea--the flat tax--and who wouldn't limbo to the music of his party's social right. He so aggravated the Christian Coalition that its activists mobilized behind Bob Dole, a candidate of lukewarm allegiance to their issues.

But that's non-holy water under the bridge. Forbes has undergone a political conversion. Preparing for his second run, last year he repeatedly appeared before religious right rallies, and he declared--get this--that outlawing abortion is more important than implementing his cherished flat tax. I don't begrudge anyone seeing the light. Maybe he really believes his new rhetoric. (Oh, stop laughing.) It's not surprising that Forbes would shift camps; he has simply joined the whatever-it-takes caucus of presidential candidates. But it is stunning that leading activists of the religious right have embraced Forbes. Don't they believe in penance? There ought to be a rule: if a candidate decides to move from secularist to religious rightist, she or he ought to have to sit out one presidential election. Call it a show of good faith. But with nary a waiting--or testing--period, the religious right has welcomed Forbes into the flock and allowed him the opportunity to become a shepherd. How's that for gullibility? Forbes' transformation is not a shocker for a politician--even if he, like Liddy Dole, claims to be _not_ a politician--but it would have been heartening to see the religious right not fall for the quick-change act.

The lesson is, mammon talks, and principles walk. At least, New Hampshire's economy will benefit. The religious right's acceptance of Forbes can only encourage him, and, encouraged in this way, he will pour millions into a flood of negative ads aimed at his fellow GOPers. So let's thank anyone who eggs him on. Back in 1996, Forbes blitzed Bob Dole with a fury of nasty ads in the first-primary state, softening him up for Pat "the Pitchfork" Buchanan. Democrats delighted in Forbes' Normandy-like assault on poor Dole. I remember one devilish radio ad Forbes ran. It featured Lamar Alexander speaking critically of Bob Dole. Most listeners probably presumed the commercial was made and placed by Alexander, who could then be blamed for assailing a fellow Republican and breaking Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment. But at the end of the spot, an announcer quickly noted the piece was paid for by the Forbes campaign. It was a clever bank shot. The day it ran, I encountered Forbes outside a New Hampshire television station. "You've said you've stopped running negative ads against Bob Dole," I asked him, "but what about this radio ad being broadcast this morning?" He stared at me unblinkingly--he has that iguana stare--and said he was no longer airing commercials badmouthing Dole. But, I protested, I just heard it three times on the ride to the station. He repeated his denial. I didn't know how to respond. How do you ask someone about the smoking gun in his hand, if he says there is no gun there? Victor Navasky, then the editor of The Nation, later told me that I had missed a grand opportunity. I should have said to Forbes, "Oh, yeah, you wanna bet?"

Forbes is poised to reprise his slasher act. A p.r. operative in Washington close to the Forbes campaign says that the Forbes outfit is going full-throttle in its opposition research against Texas Governor George W. Bush, the speak-no-specifics, unannounced front-runner. Forbes' burrowers are digging into every business deal W. ever sniffed at. They're looking for examples of hot-headedness, chasing stories of temper tantrums and misuses of Texas state offices to settle scores with foes, real or perceived. Even though RNC chairman Jim Nicholson and other prominent GOPers are urging the Republican presidential contenders to not carve each other up--and Forbes is the foremost target of these admonitions--don't expect restraint on Forbes' part. He realizes it's going to take extreme measures to derail W. Since 1960, whenever the GOP had a true nomination battle--which has occurred six times--the front-runner snagged the nomination in every instance but one. The exception: Barry Goldwater vanquishing Nelson Rockefeller in 1964. This is proof of the Republican Sheep Theory, which holds that Republican voters usually do what they're told to do by the party leaders. This election, that means the sheep vote for Bush the Younger. Forbes and the others are going to have to whack away at W. to have any shot. I wonder how Forbes' new pals on the right will react when he starts behaving in a distinctly non-Christian fashion .

I'm also curious what Forbes' new comrades on the religious right know of his lineage, for Forbes' diversification into social conservatism is colored by the fact that the fortune he is spending to advance this cause was amassed by a man of libertine repute, his father. In the early 1980s, when I lived in Manhattan and engaged in (or tried to engage in) whirlwind socializing, I often heard of the wild parties on Malcolm Forbes' yacht. I was invited once or twice, but I took a pass, since I was informed this party vessel was manned mostly by men seeking men. If only Malcolm could watch his son now, consorting with the intolerant right, with those who lie in bed at night fretting that somewhere out there men are making love to other men. If Malcolm could have foreseen this, he might have become a fan of generation-skipping trusts.

The Real Dope

It wasn't a good week for drug czar General Barry McCaffrey. On Wednesday, the prestigious Institute of Medicine released a report on the medical value of marijuana and acknowledged that "there are patients with debilitating symptoms for whom smoked marijuana might provide relief." The study, which was requested by McCaffrey's office, contradicted McCaffrey's oft-stated insistence that there is, as he once said, "not a shred of scientific evidence that shows that smoked marijuana is useful or needed." After the report came out, McCaffrey latched on to the portions that noted that the full therapeutic value of marijuana will be realized only when delivery methods other than smoking are developed. He called for a further discussion of "the issue from a scientific and medical viewpoint." That was the best he could come up with, but it was also hypocritical, for McCaffrey has not been a strong adherent of science-based policy--particularly in the field of needle exchange programs. Last year, the heads of the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Surgeon General, and other health policy chieftains signed off on a memorandum that noted, "After reviewing all of the research, we have unanimously agreed that there is conclusive scientific evidence that needle exchange programs, as part of a comprehensive HIV prevention strategy, are an effective public health intervention that reduces the transmission of HIV and does not encourage the use of illegal drugs." To this science, McCaffrey said, piss off. He convinced the Clinton Administration to ignore the findings and maintain the ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs. He's for science when it suits him; otherwise he's willing to play politics with people's health and safety.

School for All

There are no big ideas out there anymore. End poverty? Health care for everyone? Forget about it. Let the markets decide. At most, conventional thinking goes, the governments of the world can act to take the sharpest edges off the results of market dislocations that result from globalization; there is little demand for collective measures aimed at social progress. Oxfam International, the anti-hunger outfit, has dared to challenge the do-nothing mindset. Last week, it released a report noting that across the planet 125 million pre-teen children do not attend school. Another 150 million leave school without basic literacy skills. (By the way, one quarter of all adults in the developing world are unable to read or write--a growing number.) Yes, all you cynics, it is four-hankies time. "While governments in the industrialized world talk of linking all primary schools to the Internet over the next few years," Oxfam says, "millions of children in developing countries are unable to develop their potential for want of a pencil or simple notepad....Sustained poverty reduction requires increased growth. Education is a catalyst for growth because it raises productivity, innovation, and output." So the band at Oxfam has cooked up a brash suggestion: let's make sure all kids around the world receive a primary-school education. For about $8 billion extra in funding a year--coupled with serious debt relief--a universal education program could be achieved, according to Oxfam.

That number seems low. Even if many people in the developing world get by on less than a dollar a day, can an average annual expenditure of $64 per student do the trick? But I defer to the expert analysts of Oxfam, who point out that $8 billion, in planetary terms, is not that huge a sum. It is, for example, equivalent to four days' worth of global military spending. Money, of course, is not the whole answer. The governments of the countries where children are not in school--India and Pakistan account for one-third of the total--would have to commit to the principle of education for all and institute reforms to allow this. Oxfam is hoping that an international campaign that includes concrete pledges of aid and debt relief will persuade developing nations to make the necessary changes. "Universal primary education," the report says, "is an imperative for addressing the single greatest challenge facing humanity at the end of the 20th century: namely, the eradication of poverty. It also is a fundamental requirement for social justice....Countries and individuals without access to the skills and knowledge provided by education will fall further and further behind. The process is already underway. Educational deprivation is transforming large parts of the developing world into increasingly marginalised enclaves of despair."

This is some dream Oxfam has. If you're interested in sharing in it, visit their web site at http;//www.oxfam.org/educationnow.