Now Playing: The Perfect Campaign
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HEADLINE: Public Interests;
Now Playing: The Perfect Campaign
BYLINE: By GAIL COLLINS
BODY:
The presidential primary is in full bloom, and never have we seen a campaign
more focused on the issues. At this very moment, John McCain and George W.
Bush are trading ferocious faxes about whether it's better to expand the 15
percent tax bracket or create a new one at 10 percent. Turn on TV and you'll
find the Democratic candidates arguing whether Bill Bradley's health care
plan has a cap or a weighted average.
I hope you're happy, people.
This is what you wanted, right? A dignified race, where candidates take the
high road. A campaign so focused on policy that we are not allowed to ask
Mr. Bradley what his favorite color is, or probe for details about Mr.
Bush's lost years.
The other night at a Republican debate in South Carolina, a reporter asked
the candidates to name their biggest mistakes. Picking your own worst error
isn't very threatening -- Mr. Bush always says it was letting the Texas
Rangers trade Sammy Sosa. But the audience practically booed the poor woman
off the stage. She's prying! Let's get back to the issues! Tell us some more
about the International Monetary Fund!
They were probably worried that she was going after those old cocaine
rumors, but it's been ages since this campaign went anywhere near tawdry
gossip. If this is the age of tabloid sleaze, I'd hate to see the new
Puritanism. Way back in 1964, when the media were supposed to be in their
don't-ask-don't-tell mode, and Nelson Rockefeller was trying to take the
Republican nomination away from Barry Goldwater, all anybody could talk
about was how Rockefeller had left his first wife and married a much younger
woman. (New Hampshire Republicans rebelled against their options and picked
Henry Cabot Lodge, the Ambassador to Vietnam, who was neither in the country
nor on the ballot. You have to love this state.)
This year the Republican challenger is John McCain, whose marital history is
much the same as Rockefeller's, albeit more action-packed. But nobody ever
brings it up, except to praise the candidate for taking the blame for
wrecking his first marriage.
It's regarded as a show of principle when Mr. Bradley refuses to reveal his
favorite movie, best friend or religion. He did loosen up enough to identify
his favorite dessert (pecan pie), a question that was apparently unintrusive
enough for every candidate except Alan Keyes, who declined to answer.
Virtually everybody else picked some variation on the theme of ice cream.
This is not a particularly helpful piece of information, but I must admit it
came as a relief after the thing about the weighted averages.
Some of the candidates avoid reporters, but they all take questions from the
voters, whose concerns, they say, are more serious. The residents of the
early primary states have been invited to dozens and dozens of town
meetings, where Al Gore will beg them to probe further into his feelings
about the Superfund, or Mr. McCain will volunteer all the instances when his
integrity was compromised by the lack of campaign finance reform.
Having taken advantage of all these opportunities, the voters in Iowa and
New Hampshire are beginning to make up their minds. And they are voting, it
turns out, on personality.
"It's the whole wife thing that clinched it for me," a New Hampshire teacher
who's voting for Mr. Bush told The Times's Richard Berke. The Texas governor
won her support when he passed up a debate in order to escort his spouse to
an awards banquet. "Besides," she added, "I like his dad."
George W. supporters form a vast and diverse cross-section of this great
nation, including not only people who liked his dad but also people who
liked his mom, and a sizable minority who are fond of the whole darned
family. Meanwhile, a lot of independents are telling reporters they could go
for either Mr. McCain or Mr. Bradley because they both seem honest. On a
policy basis this is like saying that you could add either grenadine or
Tabasco sauce to the recipe because they both look red.
The campaign and the voters seem to be inhabiting different dimensions, but
you don't hear any grumbling on Main Street about how the candidates ought
to drop all this darned substance. Most people seem pretty content about the
way things are going. You can't help wondering, though, if the public
secretly regards debates as just a good way to keep the politicians off the
streets.
LOAD-DATE: January 14, 2000