GOP Presidential Hopefuls Step in Sync on Most Issues

All of the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination agree that the existing tax code should be scrapped and replaced with something radically different.

So ironically the debate over the flat tax has provoked the sharpest disagreements in the race.

In its disproportion, the squall over tax reform illuminates two basic truths about the 1996 Republican presidential campaign. One is that all of the GOP contenders have coalesced around a broadly similar message of shrinking the federal government and devolving power outside of Washington. As a result, they must fight loudly about relative details to distinguish themselves from another.

The second truth, as the sound and fury over the flat tax shows, is that the struggle to precisely define that broad consensus is being driven less by the ostensible front-runner--Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole--than by Steve Forbes, the neophyte politician with the bottomless checkbook and the rising poll numbers.

It is Forbes’ relentless touting of the flat tax that has forced the issue to center stage. And it is Forbes’ perceived vulnerability on social concerns that is suddenly raising the profile of issues like abortion and immigration which had virtually vanished from the campaign’s radar.

“It is remarkable,” says Peter Wehner, policy director at the conservative think tank Empower America. “He is driving the agenda on a whole range of issues.”

Even with the heated dispute over the flat tax--and the rising argument over abortion--the areas of convergence among the leading Republican candidates are still far more significant than the disagreements.

With the exception of Patrick J. Buchanan, who has stressed a bristling economic nationalism that repudiates the party’s recent history of support for free trade and military engagement abroad, none of the leading contenders proposes to significantly shift the philosophical center of the party from the anti-government message that powered the Republican sweep of Congress in 1994. All promise to cut federal spending; all would eliminate the Education Department and institute private school vouchers; all say they would roll back federal affirmative action programs, repeal the ban on assault weapons and dramatically streamline the tax code.

Distinctions Exist

Important distinctions still exist--particularly in emphasis. Texas Sen. Phil Gramm puts more priority on cutting spending than Forbes; former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander is more enthusiastic about congressional reform than is Dole; Forbes, representing the Jack Kemp tradition, is warier than most of his rivals about policies that present a hard edge toward immigrants, the minorities or the poor.

But in 1996, Republicans face nothing like the fundamental arguments that divided Democrats in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 primaries over whether to stick with traditional liberalism or move toward the center, as contenders from Gary Hart to Bill Clinton urged. Nor do Republicans face anything approaching the ideological division they would have confronted had their presidential field included former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin L. Powell, who expressed support for abortion rights, gun control and affirmative action.

“There is not a whole lot of ideological diversity among the Republican candidates,” says Mark Merritt, the communications director for Alexander.

Balancing the budget, flattening the tax code, shifting control of social programs to the states, enlarging the role of private charities in delivering services to the poor and rolling back federal affirmative action programs--these are all common themes of the leading GOP contenders now and are likely to play a major role in the Republican campaign next fall.

“There is general convergence about the theme of moving more resources and power outside of Washington,” says Adam Meyerson, editor of the Heritage Foundation’s Policy Review. “On the issue that is the great debate of the mid-1990s--what should be the size and scope of the federal government--all of the Republican candidates agree.”

But as they battle among each other for the nomination, the candidates have been compelled--as they are every four years--to accentuate and even exaggerate, their differences.

Just like marketing campaigns, political campaigns demand product differentiation, and relatively small differences have been magnified precisely because there is so much agreement on the big questions. For instance, in radio advertisements running in Louisiana, Buchanan is attacking Gramm as insufficiently committed to the anti-abortion cause--even though Gramm has a 100% lifetime voting record from the National Right to Life Committee.

But the debate over issues is sharpening also because of Forbes’ ascent. During 1995, when Dole was the fulcrum of the race, the leading candidates spent relatively less time attempting to distinguish themselves on specific issues than on personal characteristics.

That dynamic was a direct result of Dole’s strategy. After repeated run-ins with “movement” conservatives during the 1980s, Dole in 1995 consciously sought to prevent his opponents--particularly Gramm, who he thought would be his main rival--from outflanking him on the right. During the early months of the campaign, Dole signed a pledge not to raise taxes in office--the same pledge he had rejected at considerable political cost in 1988; wooed Christian conservatives with sharp denunciations of Hollywood; aligned himself with anti-immigration and English-only movements and pledged to repeal the assault weapon ban.

Though Gramm argued that Dole had been too prone to raise taxes in the past, Dole’s maneuvering prevented any of his rivals from effectively labeling him a moderate and creating a sharp ideological comparison. As a result, they devoted their energies mostly to establishing more personal contrasts with Dole: Gramm has portrayed him as a compromiser too quick to make a deal with Democrats on issues from the budget to welfare reform; Forbes has bombarded Dole with television ads labeling him an insider with “Washington values” and Alexander has painted the 72-year-old majority leader as a man lacking the “vision” to lead the GOP into the next century.

As the candidates shift their focus toward Forbes--who now leads in several polls of New Hampshire, the critical first primary state--they are employing some of this same broad positioning. In his speeches, Dole has unveiled a Republican version of class warfare, contrasting his experience growing up in “hardscrabble” Russell, Kan., during the Depression with Forbes’ life of inherited wealth. In a form of jujitsu against Forbes’ portrayal of himself as an outsider, Alexander has repeatedly declared that Forbes lacks the experience to be president.

But as Forbes rises, he is driving the campaign focus onto specific issues--both those that he is emphasizing and those on which his opponents believe him vulnerable.

The most obvious example is the flat tax--an idea that most conservatives expected to be part of the GOP’s 1996 general election message, but which played almost no role in the primary campaign until Forbes joined the race last fall. Now, the flat tax is unarguably the most visible and hotly debated issue in the race.

All of the leading GOP contenders have staked out positions that express broad support for the concept, but reject key components of Forbes’ specific flat tax plan. And all of them are likely to continue talking about the flat tax more than any other subject at least through the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 20. “It will dominate the debate,” says Merritt.

Resurrecting Issues

Forbes’ rise is shifting the dialogue in other respects too. Buchanan and Gramm are now working feverishly to portray Forbes as a faux conservative, whose “slick TV commercials” hide a moderate “Rockefeller Republican” pedigree, as Gramm put it in a television interview Sunday.

In that effort, they are resurrecting issues that were consigned to the shadows through 1995. After an early flurry of interest, the candidates said little about immigration last year. But now, Gramm, Buchanan and Dole are reviving the issue--because they believe that Forbes’ support for high levels of legal immigration and opposition to California’s Proposition 187 could cost him with culturally conservative voters.

Even more dramatic has been the revival of abortion as a campaign dispute. During 1995, the candidates discussed the issue so rarely that many social conservatives accused them of walking away from it. But suddenly, abortion is back in the footlights.

On Saturday in Dubuque, Dole announced that if elected, he would make the first day of his presidency “American Family Day” and repeal a series of abortion-related executive orders President Clinton has issued.

Buchanan has moved the issue to the forefront of his advertising campaign. And, after indicating early last year that he would not seek to overturn Roe vs. Wade, Gramm has sent out mailings in Iowa touting his “100 Percent Pro-life record.”

Possible Achilles’ Heel

This renewed focus partly reflects the prominence of social conservatives in several of the key early primaries--particularly Louisiana, which holds its caucuses today, and Iowa, which will conduct its caucuses next Monday. But it also demonstrates the belief of the other major candidates that the moderate views Forbes has expressed on some social issues may represent his Achilles’ heel in a party where Christian conservatives are a vital electoral bloc.

Yet, Forbes is moving purposefully to narrow his differences with the prevailing party consensus on both social and economic issues. Forbes has said that he would not seek to ban abortion now because public opinion would not support such a step; but last week he told The Times that he would ultimately support a ban on abortion, except in cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother.

After initially indicating support for Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, he has more recently said he would be open to repealing it. Similarly, after repeatedly denouncing a constitutional amendment to balance the budget as a magazine columnist, Forbes recently indicated he could support it.

These maneuvers may not be enough to prevent a backlash against Forbes from some conservative leaders. But, like Dole’s moves in 1995, Forbes’ tactical shifts now illuminate the larger trend. After rejecting the “kinder, gentler” moderation of the George Bush years, the GOP has reached a broad, militantly conservative consensus on both economic and social issues--and no one seeking the nomination is willing to bet his candidacy on challenging it.

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