A Dole-Kemp Flop: Just the Ticket for GOP Wannabes?

Final checklist: Polo shirts, toothbrush, notebook and Bible.

It’s time to go see the Republicans nominate a presidential candidate.

My only previous visit to a national political convention was in 1984, when the Democrats met in San Francisco. That was the year Walter Mondale was nominated to take on Ronald Reagan in an act of human sacrifice not rivaled since virgins leaped into volcanoes.

Somehow, though, a few Democrats got the idea they could knock off the most popular president in the last generation and that one way to do it would be to pick a woman no one had ever heard of to run with Mondale. As word spread that it would be Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York, I remember sitting in on a women’s caucus meeting at which the exhilaration was palpable.

There was a genuine sense that, with Ferraro’s breakthrough nomination, America was on the verge of something. It was: four more years of the Reagan presidency.

I have the same feeling about this week’s Republican convention in San Diego that, in retrospect, I had about the Democrats that year. Which is that Republicans with presidential hopes for the future really don’t care if Bob Dole gets elected or not. Hook them up to lie detectors and I bet you’d find that the GOP wannabes are pulling for a Clinton victory.

Why would a Republican with future presidential aspirations want Dole to win and, even though it would be unlikely because of his age, possibly run again in 2000? And, unless your name is Jack Kemp, why would Republicans shooting for 2000 want Dole to win this year and give his vice president a leg up on the rest of the field in 2000 should Dole step down?

No, it’s a much better scenario for future GOP candidates to have Dole go down with the ship this year, clearing the decks for 2000, when they won’t have Bill Clinton to worry about. Rest assured, no one in America was happier about Colin Powell’s absence on a Dole ticket than all those prospective GOP presidential candidates looking four years ahead.

In 1984, realistic Democrats knew Mondale was a dead duck, and I don’t think they fretted that much. He represented the Old Guard, and New Ager Gary Hart had made a strong primary showing. Hart knew Mondale wouldn’t beat Reagan and, along with every other Democrat of national standing, was licking his chops and pointing toward 1988.

The Democrats held the ’84 convention only because it would have been embarrassing not to, but they at least had the theatrical sense to enliven it with speeches from Mario Cuomo and Jesse Jackson and the Ferraro nomination.

The Republicans aren’t even offering that.

A speech by Gerald Ford? Come on now, people.

When Bob Dole is your headliner, you’ve got to worry about the audience drifting out to check who’s playing the smaller rooms. The Republicans could use a good lounge act in San Diego.

Failing that, I’ve been trying to figure out what to look for this week, but few ideas present themselves. From a contemporary history point of view, I’m wondering how the Republicans went from their “revolution” in 1994 to nominating Bob Dole two years later. When I think of revolutionary leaders capitalizing on social upheavals, the trio of Napoleon, Mao and Dole comes up one name short.

And that’s the problem with this convention: It isn’t the natural culmination of anything, the way Reagan’s nomination was in 1980 or Barry Goldwater’s in 1964. Placing their names in nomination represented the crescendo of a political season. This year, the dots don’t seem to connect between the Republican sweep in ’94 and nominating Dole. It’s more like, “Oh, yeah, we nominate Bob Dole.”

That’s why I don’t expect to fill up a notebook this week. I’m not expecting giddy celebrations like the kind that greeted Reagan and Goldwater in their day. Whatever “bump” Dole gets from the convention will more than likely be swallowed whole by the time the Democrats finish their convention later this month.

That will leave only the election itself.

And if Dole loses this November?

Democrats will be happy, but they won’t be alone. They’ll be joined in spirit by a group of ambitious Republicans blinking back their crocodile tears as they look to the dawning of a bright new millennium, a mere four years away.

Maybe then, they’ll be telling themselves, we can restart the revolution.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.