And Now For Something Completely Treasonous

TONY BLANKLEY

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TO: Al Gore

FROM: Tony Blankley

RE: How you can win the election (maybe)

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There is no time to be wasted, so let’s get the unpleasantries out of the way straight off. While your family and friends know you are a prince, your willingness to shift positions and constantly re-craft your image has led the public to conclude that you are a say-anything, do-anything-to-get-elected frog. This may be a problem as the public tends to mistake opportunism, vacillation and sly misrepresentation for a lack of leadership.

We veteran Washington hands understand, of course, that leading by following is far more practical than dashing ahead and hoping the public will keep up. Nonetheless, the public persists in looking for heroes, or at least a little constancy in the views of their presidents.

On the other hand, the public is corruptible. They may tell pollsters these things. They may even believe them. But a hundred million dollars out of the reptile fund has been known to buy many a sincere heart. And you’ve got trillions in the projected surplus to spend.

Don’t be deterred by these calumnies against your honor. Play to them. We live in a self-centered, material age. The old virtues of sincerity, honor, constancy are giggled at by the dot-com crowd. We’ve become a pigs-in-clover society. Don’t hesitate to promise every segment of the public what it wants. You are never going to win their hearts; you might win their self-interested minds. If you can get over valuing self-respect, you are halfway home. Don’t waste your time doing any more of those photo-ops with cute kids. It looks creepy, not cuddly, when you struggle through those special moments.

The strategic point of all this is that unlike Reagan, you cannot get elected on your vision, homespun warmth and guileless innocence. And, unlike Clinton, you can’t get elected by an insinuating charm and subtle seduction of the voters. You will have to win the presidency the old-fashioned way, the way Richard Nixon did. Outsmart both your opponent and the public. Use issues and people the way a general uses men and material--as expendable cannon fodder. Let it be said of your campaign what was once said of the reign of France’s Louis XI--known across Europe in the latter 15th century as “The Universal Spider”: the wiles of your strategy flourished while the sinews of your power were trained and taut.

In many ways this election is similar to Nixon’s first presidential run in 1960. Then, too, a smart and able--if shifty and unloved--vice president was trying to succeed to the presidency after eight years of peace and prosperity. His challenger was the charming son of a powerful political player, but the challenger was better known for being likable than for liking heavy policy discussions. Then, too, the vice president was believed to be the more formidable debater, but he was having trouble getting out from under the shadow of the president. And, curiously, that was the last time the Democratic Party held its convention here in Los Angeles, until this week. Ultimately, of course, Nixon lost to Kennedy on the amorphous slogan: “We can do better.”

This brings me to your most vexing strategic challenge. The central premise of your incumbent, status quo campaign must be, and is: You helped create the current peace and prosperity, and you, far better than Mr. Bush, know how to keep it going. But, as in 1960, the innate American urge to move on, to “do better,” inevitably attracts votes. So you have to offer more, new and different things while not losing the sense of continuity, which is the only reason you have a decent chance of winning.

Over the last two months, you have attempted to create that sense of “continuity plus” by combining new proposals for bigger tax cuts, larger drug, Social Security and medical programs and vast new energy subsidies with a stridently populist attack against “big oil” and “big drugs.”

My concern, sir, is that there is too much conspicuous “plus” and not enough “continuity.” Clinton gained the presidency twice by shedding the Democratic Party of the wild-eyed class envy rhetoric, while embracing Republican fiscal responsibility and tough-on-crime language. Your tone is moving the Democratic Party back to the bad old days. Don’t be fooled by the wild applause you will get with that approach in Los Angeles in front of your union organizers and special-interest activists. With more than half of all Americans now owning stock (up from about 17% during the Reagan years), the ratio of resentful to satisfied voters has tilted badly against your old-fashioned rhetorical style.

This is where a little Nixonian subtlety would be in order. Even as your first obligation is to keep the bond

market and the Fortune 100 happy, you must calibrate your populist rhetoric to snare the liberal miscreants in your base who are thinking of voting for Nader, or staying home. Don’t go thumping away on the evening news. Save this message for your media buys on urban and college-town radio stations. Whisper your many promises of boodle-for-votes discreetly. The Internet is the ideal tool for delivering tailored promises below the radar. Think of this as rhetorical fly-fishing, not your usual style of throwing a grenade in the lake and hoping to scoop up the dead fish.

Finally, there is the dicey matter of managing “them” offstage. You want no Clintons, but you’ve got two. There is no point in being subtle. If I were you, I’d jump straight to blackmail. Start talking about a tough-as-nails Gore Justice Department. Tell them about your fascination with extending statutes of limitations. Mention your idea of selecting Kenneth Starr for attorney general. If all else fails, tell him you plan to pass a bill outlawing penthouses and interns at presidential libraries.