PERCEPTION IS REALITY
bryan beller (7.30.00)

The battle for the middle of the American political spectrum continues, and right now George W. Bush is winning. Why? Because of what Bush has been able to do since the end of the primary season that Al Gore has not: become secure enough with his base to create the perception that he holds positions outside his party's traditional ideology.

Richard Nixon once summed up the challenge facing presidential candidates very neatly. It was his view that, in the primaries, you should run as far to the right (or if Democratic, left) as necessary to defeat your opponents. Then, once the nomination is secure, run for the center as fast as you can in the general election without offending your base so much that they don't show up at the polls in November. The trick is not to run too far to one side or the other, or you may have a difficult time getting back from the fringe. Following this theory, Gore held a tremendous advantage over Bush once the primaries ended, as the strong challenge from Sen. John McCain pushed Bush far to the right of his desired post-primary position. Yet Bush has consistently led all polls with swing voters from May onward. Did Gore blow it, or did Bush craft a better strategy over the past three months? Both.

Let's start with Gore. He was in an enviable position after defeating Bill Bradley. Bradley challenged Gore from the left, allowing Gore to sit closer to the middle by trashing Bradley as an "old Democrat" - just the kind of words the general election swing voters like to hear, as evidenced by Bill Clinton's successful positioning as a "new Democrat" over the past eight years. The Gore-ing of Bradley's leftist positions didn't cost Al any support among traditional Democratic primary voters, either. Bradley struggled to reach 20% in some primary returns. Better yet, Gore didn't have to spend a lot of money to get those numbers. So you had an incumbent Vice President, flush with cash, with enough stated traditional Democratic positions and party support to stretch out towards the center, lying in wait for a wounded, right-leaning Bush in the general.

Then along came Elian Gonzalez.

I don't know what Gore was thinking. By favoring the government's intervention - i.e., keeping Elian in the States by federal decree against his father's wishes - into what the overwhelming majority of Americans saw as a private family matter, the Republicans were caught in a hypocrisy trap of the highest order. Essentially they were saying, we are the party of less government and judicial restraint unless it suits our domestic and international political agenda. The Cuban-American lobby was becoming hysterical over the issue, and they were losing support throughout Congress and in repeated polls. The Clinton administration was favoring a forced entry, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Gore knew what was coming ahead of time.

So what did Gore do? In a misguided fit of Florida electoral vote greediness (the Cubans control many districts in southern Florida), and a desire to break with the Clinton administration on any substantive issue that could benefit him, he came out in support of keeping Elian in the U.S. It was probably an effort to get closer to the middle, but it was too fast, too soon, and too transparent.

Democrats who'd been fighting the anti-Castro-at-all-costs U.S. policy on Cuba for twenty years were astounded. The right had beaten them over the head for being "soft on Communism" for a generation. Yet the Soviet Union had been dead for ten years, Cuba was about as threatening to the U.S. as Costa Rica, and the support for a change in policy had been mounting for years. It was the perfect time for Gore to show the Republicans that the emperor had no clothes.and he decided to show everyone how tough he was on Castro? Now?

The floodgates of criticism opened, and he was rightly punished. Republicans chastised him for a last-minute opportunistic position switch, one that Bush - right or wrong - had held all along. Democrats flailed him publicly on talk shows. Worst of all, the American people saw right through it. When the raid on the Miami relatives' home was carried out successfully just a week after Gore's flip-flop - a Janet Reno decision that took some real cojones to make, especially post-Waco - Republicans tried to make a big deal out of it and wanted to call Congressional hearings on the matter. When they found that some 70% of polled citizens had no interest in such hearings, the GOP turned tail and ran away. Gore was left sitting empty-handed, appearing to have both been politically expedient and intellectually unwise as a decision maker.

Worse, it exposed the fact that Gore's support may be just as thin as it is wide. Dems have never been fanatical about their preference for Gore; he's just the man of the moment. Labor unions have had a beef with Clinton-Gore since their endorsement and passage of NAFTA, and they started flexing their muscle, talking about possibly endorsing Ralph Nader as payback. Gore's charisma and campaigning ability not nearly being enough to carry the day through tough political times - unlike a certain Democratic icon of late - he was forced to run back to the left after the primary season ended. Hence his appearances with environmentalists, teachers' unions, labor unions, etc. He's here to fight for the "people, not the powerful." He exclaims how he's always been there for the traditional Democratic constituencies, and he'll continue to fight for them against "big business, big tobacco and big oil." That's great, but this all should have been over already. Name one thing that Gore has done since May to create the perception that he's any different than the Democrats of old, other than break with the Clinton administration on Elian. You can't, because he hasn't. And he's still trying to get back to the middle to this day.

The Elian Gonzalez issue was a tangential affair, but on such things do presidential races turn. When Gore slipped, Bush took full advantage.

After having disposed of McCain in a nasty primary affair by having run to the right - OK, the extreme right in South Carolina - Bush immediately began working on softening his image. He spoke of the reflexive right-wing hatred of government in a negative context. He talked about targeted tax cuts for the middle class. He went to California, denounced the infamous Proposition 187 (an anti-immigrant measure that haunts California Republicans to this day), and spoke some Spanish. He also attended the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic political organization in America, and gave a well-received speech (can you imagine Bob Dole or Bush Sr. doing such a thing?). He even gave a speech for the NAACP, admitting that "the party of Lincoln" has not always carried the "mantle of Lincoln." Nothing about abortion, culture war, or Jesus Christ being his favorite philosopher, no sir.

And the right-wing knows better than to get too out of line; they've been out of presidential power for too long, and are more than willing to keep their mouths shut if it means getting W. into office. Pat Buchanan is a non-entity this time around as he scrambles for Reform Party support. Gore enjoys no such current luxury on his left flank, as Ralph Nader is polling a crucial 5% in important states like Michigan and California.

The Republican convention will be the cementing of Bush's new friendly, centrist image. (This column was filed prior to the convention taking place.) There will be none of the traditional Democrat-bashing (in the past, the GOP had dedicated an entire night to such a cause). Look at the speakers slated to appear: Elizabeth Dole, Condoleezza Rice (a female foreign policy expert), Colin Powell, W.'s wife Laura, some Virginia State Representative named Paul Harris (a Republican black man, apparently the only GOP African-American elected official they could find not named J.C. Watts) - does this strike you as odd? Who would have thought that, to paraphrase New Republic columnist Michelle Cottle, the 2000 Republican National Convention would look like a United Colors of Benetton billboard?

The GOP, under Bush's direction, has finally learned the lesson than Clinton has beaten into them. With the right candidate (this strategy would probably not be working with Bob Dole as its mouthpiece), you can campaign in the middle while holding positions inside your own party's stated platform. The trick - as I've noted in italics throughout this column - is simply to create the appearance of centrist positions. George W. Bush does not share the agenda of the NAACP, but by simply appearing before them and uttering some apologetic remarks, he's created the impression that he's not a Neanderthal right-winger, even if he was acting like one only five months ago in South Carolina.

And for a more realistic view of where Bush really stands, look at the positions of his chosen Vice-Presidential running mate Dick Cheney, who while serving in Congress as a Representative of the State of Wyoming:

. Opposed abortion rights and voted against federal funding of abortions even in cases of rape, incest or when the pregnancy threatened the woman's life.

. Opposed gun control measures, including a ban on imports of plastic guns that could be smuggled past metal detectors and armor piercing bullets.

. Opposed a resolution urging South Africa to release Nelson Mandela from prison.

. Opposed the reauthorization of funding for Head Start, a widely-supported low-income educational program

These are not the positions of a "compassionate conservative." The Cheney pick is an obvious bone for the Christian Coalition, who immediately approved of the choice in several press releases. Bush's own positions are not far from these, and his choice of Cheney reflects tacit approval of these positions, but that's hardly the perception he's been working hard to successfully create.

That the Gore campaign has allowed this transformation to occur unchallenged is their own fault; they're still busy trying to secure the support of labor unions.

While it's worth remembering that Michael Dukakis held a seventeen-point lead over George Bush (like Gore, a charismatically-challenged sitting Vice President who had trouble living up to his twice-elected predecessor) after the 1988 Democratic National Convention and went on to lose the election, Gore had better get his act together, sew up his base's support, focus his message on fighting Bush for who really is the more centrist candidate, and stop waiting for the debates to do so. The current battle for the American presidency is a battle of perception of moderation, and it's one that Gore is losing badly.