Character May Not Matter Now--but It Could in 2000

Juanita Broaddrick was scarcely mentioned--only by two so-called presidential candidates that I could tell. Monica and Paula never came up, at least by name.

Republican White House aspirants courting California party activists at the GOP state convention this weekend resembled once-singed moths trying to avoid the flame. They didn’t want to go near President Clinton’s sexual misbehavior.

Clinton’s not going anywhere, they realize. He’ll remain in office another 23 months. The public backs him, for whatever reason.

Americans don’t like his right-wing enemies. They’re happy with their own lives. Some have philandered themselves and think they can relate. They don’t expect much of politicians anyway. They’ve got a lot invested in this president--votes and emotion. It’s human to focus on sex and ignore legalities such as perjury. They’re mesmerized by the charmer.

Whatever. It’s history, a lost cause.

But Vice President Al Gore, the presumptive Democratic nominee in 2000, is no Bill Clinton. He isn’t the charmer. Neither is he the reckless sexual adventurer. Nevertheless, for better or worse, Gore is coupled in voters’ minds with the president. For six years, he has seemed like a toady, enthusiastically trumpeting his boss as one of America’s historic “greats.”

The Republican nominee will need to capitalize on that to capture the White House.

Former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander showed how he would handle Gore in a weekend interview: “He’s a vice president who every week says he admires Clinton’s conduct, a severe lapse of judgment. We’ll offer a candidate who knows how to behave in the White House.”

In a convention speech, Alexander asserted that during the Clinton-Gore administration, “Our standards of right and wrong have sunk to a new low. That is not America at its best . . . not a building block for a second great American century.”

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Most candidates tested “character” lines that avoided the soiled word “character” and didn’t mention sex.

I heard only one contender, anti-abortion activist Gary Bauer--who is running more for attention than the GOP nomination--mention by name Broaddrick, the Arkansas nursing home operator who says she was raped by Clinton in a hotel room 21 years ago.

“One of the great casualties of the Clinton presidency has been honesty--simple, straightforward truth telling,” Bauer told delegates in a comment that hardly can be refuted.

“Juanita Broaddrick has accused the president of the United States of a violent, despicable crime. . . . Only two people know if she is telling the truth. . . . It is not acceptable for the president to hide behind his lawyer’s denial. The American people need to hear from the president himself.”

The Broaddrick accusation could damage Clinton--and perhaps Gore--if Republican politicians have the patience not to clumsily leap all over it, said GOP consultants schmoozing at the convention.

“If we’d just leave this alone and let the media and the public handle it,” commented pollster Stephen Kinney, “then it would taint Gore. He’s been Clinton’s ultimate defender.”

Commented Frank Luntz, another GOP pollster: “Politicians who attack Clinton head-on will lose. To be successful, they need to attack tangentially. Tone matters. Sometimes the Republican tone is off.”

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The right tone--the kind that could get voters nodding with approval--was struck by U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona. He emphasized “pride.”

“My friends, something has gone terribly wrong in a country where parents no longer wish their children to grow up to be president,” the former Vietnam POW told a dinner crowd. “They see the public profession as corrupt and they wish to hold their children to higher standards. Americans have lost pride in their government. That shames me . . .

“Even amid today’s peace and prosperity, the people know that something is wrong with the country. Ask any American one simple question: ‘Are you proud?’ ”

McCain then went through a litany of things not to be proud of about this president--renting the Lincoln bedroom, for example--without mentioning sex.

Indeed, “Are you proud?” could become the equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s famous 1980 query to voters: “Ask yourselves whether you are better off today than four years ago.”

If most Americans again answer “No”--and decide they want to take a good shower--then some Republican might beat Gore. If not, all the tax cut proposals won’t matter much.