Getting the Answers

A political expert recently defined the perfect 1988 Democratic candidate for President as tough-minded and victory-oriented, but compassionate. So, an interviewer asked, which Democrat would most closely fit that description? “John F. Kennedy!” said political consultant William Schneider.

His answer reflects the dilemma of Democrats as a Gary Hart-less field of candidates, unkindly nicknamed “The Seven Dwarfs,” blitzes Iowa eight months before that state’s caucuses--the first real event of the 1988 presidential election campaign. Back before Kennedy was elected in 1960, no doubt, a similar group of experts, if asked to define the composite perfect candidate, would have come up with a profile of Franklin D. Roosevelt with a touch of Harry S. Truman’s homey grit. Many then thought that Kennedy was a political lightweight with not much of a Senate record.

Republicans face something of the same problem, although George Bush and Bob Dole, at least, are better known than most of the Democratic contestants. What the GOP needs is a younger Ronald Reagan without flaws like the Iran- contra affair and the budget deficit.

But there is no Democratic John F. Kennedy or Republican Ronald Reagan running in 1988. So the big presidential field must sort itself out through the modern maze of caucuses, primaries, attention-getting gimmicks and posturing. This mystical mating dance already is well under way in Iowa as the pundits seek to categorize the candidates simplistically and guess who is “winning” on the basis of opinion polls, campaign strategies, fund-raising ability and other factors that may or may not have anything to do with their qualifications to be President.

Hart’s departure leaves Democrats with a field of unknowns. But, as it turned out, Americans did not know much about Hart, either. Bush has been the vice president for more than seven years, and Americans do not know a whole lot about him, except that he has been a loyal follower of the President. Bush had a long resume when he ran for President in 1980, but little was known about what sort of a CIA director he was, or an emissary to China.

Presidential politics is overly reactive. Americans elected Reagan, to a large degree, because he was not Jimmy Carter and promised to do things differently. There was much in Reagan’s record as governor of California that would have given clues to the sort of President he would be, but that record was not examined closely, and it often was misrepresented by candidate Reagan in 1980.

After Dwight D. Eisenhower, Kennedy promised to get the country moving. Now Democrats want to rev up the engines of government again. But how? To what end? What are their credentials for doing so? While they are relatively unknown, all the candidates and potential candidates have records of service that can provide some guidance.

There is time now to examine those records and to see how the candidates reacted to crises or pressures or special interests. There is time to demand that the candidates talk in some detail about their political philosophies. What leaders would they seek to emulate? What do their peers think of them? Have their policies remained consistent? Are they too susceptible to the winds of public opinion? Or are they too rigid and unwilling to recognize the need for change? What sort of managers are they? What sort of Cabinet officers would they choose?

There is time, but not much time, if the tone of the campaign so far in Iowa is any indication. The excessive fascination with strategy and style can develop a momentum all its own that makes the search for substance increasingly difficult. Right now is when Americans ought to be asking, Where’s the beef? And getting the answers.