Forbes to Launch Candidacy Today

Denouncing an overreaching government and “establishment politicians” as the main barriers to “an age of opportunity,” millionaire publisher Steve Forbes today will launch his second bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

In a broadly thematic speech, Forbes will argue that a period of “economic freedom and spiritual renewal” beckons to America in the information age--but only if government is retrenched through reforms such as a single-rate flat tax and partial use of private investment accounts for Social Security.

“It’s time to give every American the freedom to participate in this new era of prosperity,” Forbes will say, according to an advance copy of his remarks.

Best known in the 1996 campaign for his relentless advocacy of the flat tax, Forbes this time is courting religious conservatives by more heavily emphasizing social issues.

As an immediate goal, he will promise to pursue legislation to ban the late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion. In an interview with The Times on Monday, Forbes also said that, if elected, he hopes to propose a constitutional amendment to ban abortion (with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother) at some point during his term in office.

“I would hope that we would make [enough] substantial progress that [such an amendment] becomes something that is viable,” he said. “I think already the ground is beginning to shift” on the issue.

Forbes to Form Campaign Committee

While several of his expected rivals--most prominently Texas Gov. George W. Bush and former American Red Cross President Elizabeth Hanford Dole--recently have filed papers to “explore” a presidential bid, Forbes skipped that stage and will establish a campaign committee. In some ways, even that step might be seen as redundant--Forbes never really stopped running after his 1996 bid for the nomination collapsed.

But even after more than two years of constant traveling and campaigning, Forbes, 51, still faces the same overarching challenge he did in ‘96: convincing voters that he has the stature and experience to serve as president.

He is the president and chief executive of the media company founded by his grandfather (whose flagship business magazine, Forbes, bears the family name). He chaired a federal board that oversaw Radio Free Europe under Presidents Reagan and Bush. But he has never won elected office.

In his speech today, Forbes makes clear that he will try to make that resume an asset by portraying himself as a political outsider.

“You and I are entering the information age--and the Washington politicians are still stuck in the Stone Age,” he will say today. “They’re wholly owned subsidiaries of the status quo.”

Forbes joins an ever-expanding GOP field of likely or declared contenders that includes Gov. Bush, Dole, former vice president Dan Quayle, 1996 candidates Patrick J. Buchanan and Lamar Alexander, social conservative activist Gary Bauer, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Bob Smith (R-N.H.) and Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio).

Forbes’ speech crisply lays out the themes that he hopes will distinguish him in that crowded field.

More than any of his Republican rivals--and in ways reminiscent of Vice President Al Gore, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination--Forbes lauds the promise of the computer and Internet revolution to revitalize U.S. life. But, in contrast to Gore, Forbes argues that the key to realizing that promise is to give each American “more freedom and more control over your own life” by rolling back government.

To pursue that goal, Forbes is offering largely the same economic agenda he did in 1996. Topping the list is his call for a flat tax that would tax all wage income at 17%, exempt from taxation all income from savings and investments and eliminate all deductions (except the personal exemptions taxpayers can claim for themselves and their children).

Taxes Still a Focus for Candidate

In a concession to charges that the plan could raise taxes on the middle class, Forbes now says that he would allow taxpayers to choose whether to file under the new flat tax or the old progressive rate system.

Also high on Forbes’ priority list: allowing workers to divert eight percentage points of their Social Security taxes into individual investment accounts, providing parents with private school vouchers and expanding the use of tax-favored Medical Savings Accounts that individuals could use to cover their health insurance costs.

In foreign policy, Forbes’ statement calls for the deployment of a missile defense system and a harder line against “the atrocities in China.”

The biggest change in Forbes’ message is his increasing stress on social issues. In 1996, he said that he would support a ban on abortion--but that it made no sense to push for one until the country was willing to accept it. Instead, he said, conservatives should build toward a prohibition by first pursuing measures to reduce abortions “step by step.”

That posture drew fire from social conservatives--partly because they doubted Forbes’ sincerity. Forbes has ameliorated the anger by aggressively supporting the bid to prohibit partial-birth abortions now and by amplifying his commitment to a more sweeping ban later--a process that he extended yet again Monday by suggesting that he would pursue a constitutional amendment in office.

With this agenda, Forbes aides believe that he can knit together an alliance of economic and religious conservatives that would allow him to emerge as the “movement” alternative to more centrist Republicans such as Bush and Dole.

Forbes undeniably has established a stronger organizational base in the party than he built in 1996.

In his first campaign, he relied almost entirely on an unprecedented barrage of television advertisements that helped him rocket up in the polls but could not prevent him from falling almost as fast. In the end, Forbes spent $41.6 million (including $36 million of his own money) but only won primaries in Arizona and Delaware.

This time, Forbes has hired several key GOP operatives, including some from the Christian Coalition, in the critical early states of New Hampshire and Iowa. Through an issue advocacy group he founded in 1996--Americans for Hope, Growth and Opportunity--Forbes built a 140,000-name donor list with which he hopes to supplement his own contributions to the 2000 campaign.

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Profile: Steve Forbes

* Born: July 18, 1947, in Morristown, N.J. His grandfather founded Forbes magazine and his father, Malcolm S. Forbes Sr., was head of Forbes Inc. His mother, Roberta, was a homemaker.

* Education: Bachelor’s degree in American history, Princeton University, 1970.

* Career highlights: Founder of Business Today magazine; columnist for Forbes magazine; since 1990, editor in chief of Forbes magazine and chief executive of Forbes Inc.; GOP presidential candidate, 1996.

* Family: Married to Sabina Beekman, five daughters.

* Quote: “Do you trust the establishment politicians to protect your economic security and give you more freedom and more control over your own life? Do you trust them to defend your values, and protect the first and most important freedom of every child--the freedom to be born?”