That it was, and rare. Colin Powell had beggared the blather. In departing the electoral scene, he made clear what the fuss had been all about: his half-hour press conference seemed as fresh as the talking heads were stale. He demonstrated–effortlessly, it seemed–what has been missing from the national discourse. He spoke plainly, crisply and with self-deprecating humor. He took personal responsibility for his decision. He did not blame his wife, or the process, or the lunatic fringe. He did this with dignity, without donning a plaid shirt, without note cards or talking points. There is an art to politics and Powell is, clearly, familiar with it–indeed, he was so artful as to reveal little and yet seem entirely candid (as opposed to the incumbent president, who confesses promiscuously and yet seems a prevaricator). But that’s part of the frustration of the moment. Powell was good at this. And the others, those who remain in the hunt, aren’t very.
Powell’s candidacy may have been a mirage. But the desert is real. The aridity of the competition was manifest last week. In the days after the general resigned, Democrats and Republicans in Washington fell into the sort of cynical, meaningless posturing–over extending the debt ceiling, so the government could stay “open”–that the public imagined a President Powell would be too grown-up to countenance. Last week, arguments were being made that we never get the presidents we dream about, and that is no doubt true. Only a few–Washington, Eisenhower, perhaps Teddy Roosevelt and John Kennedy–seemed to fulfill a common national fantasy going in (Lincoln was seen a bumpkin; Franklin Roosevelt, a dilettante). But the race seems abandoned, increasingly, to the uninspired and robotically ambitious–a consequence of the media strip-search and witch hunts, the groveling for dollars, the ceaseless howling. Powell may have praised those with skins thick enough to make the race, but his real admiration is for those who didn’t–people like James Baker and Dick Cheney, William Bennett and Jack Kemp. In the past year, they have been joined by other people Powell admires, on the other side of the aisle–Sam Nunn and Bill Bradley, to name two–in rejecting the current mean, partisan pettiness.
What remains of public life seems crude and pathetic. Assessing Powell’s decision, the Democrats appeared almost laughably irrelevant. A beat slow, as always, they wailed that the general’s departure had proven the extremism of the Republican Party. But if that was the case, why had the general chosen the occasion to declare himself a Republican? No Democrat dared admit the truth: Powell might have thought about becoming a moderate Democrat if the best-known of the breed hadn’t been wiped out in 1994, or thrown in the towel since. The witless husk of the party that remains is as intolerant of heresy–on abortion, racial gerrymandering, the sanctity of teacher unions–as any of Pat Robertson’s wing-nuts are about their special causes. The Democrats remain blissfully out of touch with the fears and desires that motivate the slim, frustrated majority of Americans not receiving a check–welfare, Medicare, social security, agripork – from the federal government.
The Republicans don’t appear to be much better. Especially the presidential candidates. One by one they made their calls to CNN and declared themselves, unironically, the beneficiaries of Powell’s decision. None had the wit–or wisdom, or grace–to distinguish himself from the pack by making a joke at his own expense. Or by being truthful: the general’s popularity had exposed the barren, parochial nature of the GOP campaign. But then, the absence of humor in this race–to say nothing of plain talk–has been asphyxiating since it began. Even the predictably iconoclastic Pat Buchanan waxed analytical rather than eloquent, claiming that a Powell candidacy would have helped him by “pulling Dole down into the 20s [in his poll ratings],” and making it more likely that “one of us would catch him.” Inspiring stuff, that. The most candid may have been Arlen Specter, who said he had no money and might have to drop out soon.
So what now? We will have another year of these people disturbing our peace. The question is, have any of them learned from the past few months of Powell-mania–or will they proceed with business as usual and dismiss the phenomenon, as all too many pundits did last week, as just another case of the American public chasing a chimera? A second, perhaps more significant, question looms: will the American public, sensing a field of drones, tune out and leave the election to the perverse, habitual minority suffering from chronic voter syndrome? And what of the chronic voters, the NEWSWEEK-reading, C-Span-dependent clan, who will actually try to take this thing seriously? What are we going to do for fun?
Bill Clinton is always good for a laugh. He has spent most of 1995 trying to be what Colin Powell promised–that is, a strong, sensible voice, splitting the difference between the extremes of left and right. The White House calls this strategy “triangulation.” It makes political sense. But implementation has been . . . problematic. The “strong” part is a problem. The president does have his moments. His gorgeous eulogy for Yitzhak Rabin was certainly one of them. But the public knows him now, and discounts his casual eloquence – while searching, too often in vain, for evidence of steadfastness and consistency. Last week he was in midwobble over whether or not to sign the Republican welfare-reform bill. It was also likely, after Medicare tactics seemed to work for some Democrats in the 1995 elections, that Clinton would retreat into the reactionary bosom of his party–pandering to the elderly. A true “triangulator” would clear out much of the liberal deadwood that clogs his cabinet and replace it with some of the moderate New Democrats who should have been there in the first place. A “triangulator” with soul would join the Republicans to reform Medicare, while standing against their harsh cuts in Medicaid (which cares for the poor) and their simplistic vision of welfare reform. That would be wildly impolitic, though. Too much to ask of this guy, it would seem.
The conventional wisdom has been that Clinton stands to gain from a third-party movement, except if the candidate is Jesse Jackson. That will almost certainly prove wrong, especially if the third-party candidate is someone other than Ross Perot–like, perhaps, Bill Bradley, who has been off trying to create some ripples in California these past few weeks. In 1992 Perot voters were split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. In 1996 they may tend to be more liberal and populist (they do tend to rage more against incumbents, which may render them untriangulatable). Democrats like to rage, too. They usually don’t miss a chance to challenge a sitting president in the primaries–and may still find a Quixote, from the left or right, willing to test Clinton on general principles in New Hampshire. Speaking of which, a Jesse Jackson candidacy would almost certainly help the president–much as Henry Wallace’s left-wing campaign helped Harry Truman in 1948, by defining him as a moderate and enabling him to run more to the center. As for Perot, he might take a lesson from General Powell and mean what he says (for a change): stay out of the race. His third-way movement will thrive only to the extent that he is not in control of it. Certainly, the ground is fertile–now that Powell will not run as a Republican–for an independent candidacy targeted at the alienated majority of Americans disgusted with politics as usual.
And then there is Colin Powell’s party, the Republicans. The general is right: they are where the action, the energy, the new ideas have been. They have also worked overtime to blow the mandate they won in 1994. Their leaders, especially in Congress, seem to have lost track of where the country is (while keeping an eye on what their special interests need). Newt Gingrich’s intellectual arrogance and occasional cruelty compare unfavorably with Colin Powell’s calm. The speaker has paid a price for attempting to make important changes in Congress–but the source of his incredible unpopularity seems less what he believes than who he is. A closer look will now be taken at Lamar Alexander, the one plausible Republican presidential candidate who is not a member of Congress. He has a pleasant disposition and employs far too many political consultants. He also suffers from a stature gap: after the flirtation with a larger-than-life military hero, are we really going to invest much faith or energy in yet another obscure Southern governor? Most of the other contenders are just plain weird. Phil Gramm has raised a great deal of money, and spent a great deal of money, to very little effect. Pat Buchanan is to the left of most Democrats on economic policy and to the right of most Republicans on social policy. One wonders why Dick Lugar, a thoughtful senator, sees a president when he shaves each morning. No trees should be harmed to describe the others.
Which leaves Bob Dole. This is his last chance to prove he is a possible president and not just a perennially overreaching Senate panjandrum. His campaign has had its moments–slamming Hollywood for the violent trash it sometimes peddles, for example. But it has had other moments, far less distinguished–as when he pleaded with the Christian Coalition to become more active in national politics (and when he went so far as to leave his Methodist church for a congregation more acceptable to the wingers). ColinPowell’s flirtation with a candidacy demonstrated how unnecessary Dole’s bowing and scraping really was. It proved there is a market in the Republican Party for strength and moderation, two qualities Dole radiates in the Senate–but seems incapable of communicating away from Capitol Hill. The next few weeks will tell if he has learned anything–if he is still capable of assimilating anything new, beneath all the political sear tissue–and if he has the ability to grow. He has been at this a long time. He has run for president three times, which proves the fire in his belly is a chronic reflux–and also shows the limits of the cliche. To win this time, the test for Dole won’t be in his belly, but in his heart.
