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Forbes ASAP: The last election underscores the need for a presidential candidate with ideas. But are ideas enough?

National Review, Dec 7, 1998 by Ramesh Ponnuru

AS a breed, the once and future presidential candidate does not, in general, place his own phone calls. Steve Forbes still does. I took a message from him last year for a colleague: "Can you please tell her that Steve Forbes returned her call? F-O-R-B-E-S." Forbes's charm when he entered national politics in 1995 was that he was unassuming and unfailingly polite, that he was endearingly awkward-that, in short, he was not a politician. He went over well with crowds, but nobody gave him a chance to wrest the Republican presidential nomination from Bob Dole.

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Forbes didn't beat Dole, but he did impress the skeptics by winning the Arizona and Delaware primaries. And by campaigning for Republicans in the fall, he proved his candidacy had been no lark. He's been preparing non-stop for the 2000 race ever since. Indeed, after only three years, Forbes has staked a plausible claim to being the leader of the Right. Nobody has a better claim: not Newt Gingrich or Trent Lott; not Rush Limbaugh, who loomed larger before Republicans took Congress; not Jack Kemp, who has become a Harold Stassen who doesn't run; and not Bill Bennett, now seen more as a cultural figure than a political one.

Forbes has sought the support of conservatives by building their movement. Presidential aspirants routinely campaign for their party's candidates, as Forbes did for 97 of them in this election cycle. But Forbes also set up a "message tank," called "Americans for Hope, Growth, and Opportunity," which campaigns for issues. In 1997, AHGO, a self-funded organization with 140,000 dues-paying members, ran ads in Iowa to help get tax cuts passed. In 1997, Forbes drew criticism from some conservatives for campaigning for the re-election of his childhood friend, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. But unlike other Republican notables who helped Mrs. Whitman, such as Dan Quayle, Forbes returned to New Jersey to urge the state legislature to ban partial- birth abortion over her veto. (It did.)

In addition, AHGO pumps out memos and press releases like confetti. All the while, Forbes is building a record to compensate for his not holding political office-and without the disadvantages of office- holding. Forbes can pick his issues carefully and eschew compromise. No wonder Gingrich and Lott don't like him; Texas Gov. George W. Bush, too, is said to resent having to compete with him. Of course, the Republican establishment's opposition to Forbes only helps him among conservatives. At the same time, Forbes protects the integrity of conservatism by guarding its independence from that establishment.

MENDING FENCES

The most important way Forbes has helped himself, and the Right, has been by reaching out to social conservatives since 1996. Back then, Forbes refused the pro-life label and stressed the importance of cultural and attitudinal change in ending abortion. He focused on modest first steps, such as parental notification and a ban on abortion for sex selection-not nearly good enough for most pro-lifers. Forbes's 1988 description of Pat Robertson as a "toothy flake" also angered many social conservatives. ("I am not toothy!" Robertson bellowed at a Christian Coalition board meeting.) In the absence of better information, social conservatives' suspicions of rich Easterners carried the day. Facing some nasty attacks, Forbes made matters worse by saying the Christian Coalition didn't speak for all Christians.

In September 1997, though, Forbes was the hit speaker at the Coalition's annual conference in Washington. These days he makes clear he supports the goal of pro-lifers-that every child be protected in law and welcomed in life (with the usual exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother)-and for good measure throws in attacks on assisted suicide and drug legalization. Few Republicans assail partial- birth abortion more frequently than Forbes does now. But is his shift sincere?

The Forbes camp denies that the candidate has shifted at all: social- conservative leaders, it maintains, have adopted his incrementalist approach to ending abortion by pushing the partial-birth-abortion ban rather than a Human Life Amendment. It's true that Forbes hasn't contradicted anything he said earlier, but he has fleshed out his position in a way more appealing to social conservatives. In 1996, Forbes gave no impression that he would fight for his humble first steps on abortion, let alone for an eventual prohibition. And veterans of that campaign say that Forbes's criticism of the Christian Coalition, portrayed today as an off-the-cuff remark taken out of context, was in fact the result of a conscious decision by then advisor Carter Wrenn.

But it would be a mistake to focus on the details. Ralph Reed, at the time executive director of the Coalition, says, "More important was the fact that the campaign hadn't systematically built relationships and contacts, so when [the controversy started] he had nothing to rely on." That won't happen again: Forbes now has friendly relations with Robertson, and the former head of the Georgia Christian Coalition, Jerry Keen, has signed up with AHGO. Jesse Helms spoke warmly of Forbes at a National Right to Life Committee dinner in April. On the other hand, the Forbes camp's revisionism about 1996 undercuts his claim to sincerity. He would do better to say that it took time for him to find a rhetoric with which he was comfortable-which is probably the truth of the matter. He also needs to worry about appearing to pander, as he was accused of doing when he half-heartedly endorsed a cut-off of party funds from Republicans who support partial-birth abortion.

Forbes ASAP: The last election underscores the need for a presidential candidate with ideas. But are ideas enough?

National Review, Dec 7, 1998 by Ramesh Ponnuru

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