DAVID NYHAN

The state of Campaign 2000

By David Nyhan, Globe Staff, April 9, 1999

Time for more free advice to the baker's dozen who aspire to the job of succeeding Bill Clinton as commander-in-chief:

Despite polls showing Vice President Gore trailing Republicans George W. Bush and Elizabeth Dole in preliminary trial heats, my personal tout sheet rates Gore the most likely successor to Clinton, followed by Bush, Lamar Alexander, John McCain, and Bill Bradley, in that order. The rest? No shot.

Gore needs a strong economy or else he's cooked. How will the economy smell to grazing voters 18 months hence? Like a savory roast, robust, gravy-drenched, flanked by steaming vegetables? Or will it give off the telltale whiff of dead meat, a rotting carcass of what once was grand? That's the smell test Al Gore must face. From here, the economy in 18 months looks OK.

Problem No. 2 for Gore: How mad will voters still be at Bill Clinton? Will voters sickened over the Immorality Play in Washington lash out at Gore when they can't get at Clinton?

Problem No. 3: Al needs to find a political foe he can face down. Right now, he's a stick figure, like Bush under Reagan, sort of a butler to a political lord of greater charisma and appeal. Not till Bush had to come forward to defend the floundering Dan Quayle against charges of draft dodging did Bush flesh out his credentials as a stand-alone political leader, out from under Reaqgan's considerable shadow.

Gore needs a defining moment; but his team is skilled -- they'll find one. He also has a reenergized labor movement and a ton of money to bolster his chances. Even though Bill Bradley raised a surprising amount of money this first quarter ($4 mil), Gore's campaign appears to be on rails. Gore has never lost a high-profile debate -- except with himself, in his stumbling press conference over malodorous campaign contributions.

With each fresh Serb atrocity building public support for the war, Bradley's task of persuading Democrats to repudiate the Clinton-Gore record becomes more problematic. While Bradley roams the nation's airports, Gore fences with the Russians in high-profile diplomatic stakes. Dollar Bill needs more than money; he needs a major scandal or a catastrophic turn in the Kosovo campaign.

The Republicans? They've been marginalized by the war no one expected, with the exception of McCain, the one-time POW who seems bulletproof on the trail. Boldly calling for ground troops in the Balkans and a vigorous prosecution of the air war, McCain has enhanced his chances by vaulting to the forefront of the war policy debate.

His party's congressional leadership, which fought all of McCain's efforts on campaign financing and cable TV monopolies, is sullen and mute, after impeachment and voting to oppose the NATO bombing. On the war, as on campaign financing and regulating greed in telecommunications, McCain is far out in front of his party. But for McCain to come from the back of the pack, Bush has to falter.

The decision of New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg to put his statewide organization behind Bush is significant. Bush is top-heavy with endorsements from governors and lobbyists. He'll probably spurn public funding and opt to carpet-bomb the airwaves with campaign spots paid for with front-runner's easy money. But we've seen big winds out of Texas blow themselves out before. John Connally, Phil Gramm, and Ross Perot sputtered despite huge war chests. Bush reminds some of Ted Kennedy in 1980, a front-runner with piles of dough who peaks the day he announces.

Bush has everything a candidate needs -- except a set of crisply defined goals, and maybe the stomach for the fray. He's not yet faced major league pitching. If Bush stumbles in Iowa, as his father did in '92, the beneficiary might be Alexander. The former Tennessee governor just lost a key organizer to Bush in New Hampshire. But Lamar still has the best field organization in Iowa, says Hawkeye handicapper Dave Yepsen of The Des Moines Register.

Alexander, who has been campaigning for six years, has not broken through in national polls, which troubles some of his backers. But he is the most disciplined man in the field, a relentless honer of his message, who focuses tightly on GOP caucus and early primary voters. Better organized than any rival in Iowa and New Hampshire, Alexander can wait.

What's with Elizabeth Dole? She speaks well and raises money. But otherwise the first serious GOP woman candidate is timid and hesitant. And her organization is amateurish. At 62, it's not clear she has the stamina or resilience for the grind. I think her best shot is to call Governor Bush and offer not to run against him if he'll make her his running mate. Otherwise, I think she's just along for the ride, like Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Dan Quayle, John Kasich, Gary Bauer, and Alan Keyes.