Finally, Buchanan is not a bad campaigner. Earlier this month, he showed up at what one might expect to be a hostile arena for a right-winger--an Ivy League school. But according to David M. Herszenhorn, a reporter for The Dartmouth, Buchanan's visit to the Big Green received "surprisingly positive" reaction.
"Some critical questions were asked," Herszenhorn said, "and some people tried to get him to admit to being racist or sexist or homophobic." But Buchanan has learned the political game too well. He walked out with "appreciative" praise.
From a let's-beat-Bush-At-All-Costs perspective, I hope Buchanan will rake in around 37 percent. The last few decades show that no incumbent can give up that much in New Hampshire and still go on to win in November--Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Lyndon Johnson (who actually quit the race when Eugene McCarthy bagged 40 percent in the Granite state) are recent examples.
But in the hopes that Buchanan will steal Bush's fire, we can't forget that he has shown us in recent national polls that cleaned up David Duke rhetoric can appeal nationally. Too harsh? I'll grant that Buchanan is obviously not an avowed Nazi, but too often putting "America first" seems to mean we must accept the white Catholic values he grew up with as those of a patriotic America.
Only Jews wanted to fight the Gulf War, he said last year. As Michael E. Kinsley '72 pointed out recently, he thinks Americans sympathize with Russians because they, like "us," are "white people."
It's not uncommon for politicians to blame ethnic and racial minorities for poor economic times. Like the Bush administration infighting, the attack on Bush from the right may help defeat the president in the fall. But also like the White House wrangling, the rebirth of the politics of race and isolation in America warn of deeper problems.
GEORGE BUSH versus the Supreme Court. Last week, the mostly Reagan-Bush Court agreed to hear a Pennsylvania case that could possibly result in the reversal of Roe V. Wade. More bad news.
The 1989 Webster case from Missouri, which only weakened Roe, is credited with giving Democrats Jim Florio and Douglas Wilder the edge in their narrow elections that fall.
But with the additions of David H. Souter '61 and Clarence Thomas, the Court is even more conservative than in 1989. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's middle-of-the-road tie-breaking position prevented an overturn in 1989, when four justices were prepared for reversal and four were opposed. Now two of four supporters of Roe are gone.
The Court usually adjourns for a break in June or July, and since arguments for this case won't begin until April, the Court probably won't rule until just before leaving for the beach.
An overturn of Roe next summer would surely set the tone for the July and August nominating conventions in New York and Houston--as civil rights issues did in 1948 and as the Vietnam War did in 1968. The difference is that this time, the Republicans will have the convention-floor bloodbath. And the Democrats will benefit.
But, again, at what cost? Perhaps the 1992 race will find a Democrat the victor partially because Roe is overturned. But the legacy of the Republican Right's Court will be the end of a women's right to choose--far more important for many than the legacy of the 1992 election.
THESE SHORT-TERM MISSTEPS are both cause and symptom of a failed presidency. Of course, later this year--say, around the time George Bush turns 68 in July, when short-term remedies bring the economy up a bit and when the Bush campaign is running full-speed--Bush won't look so bad. Few will remember the poor appointments, the unwillingness to create a long-term economic strategy, the erstwhile Buchanan challenge.
But the long-term consequences of his difficulties will still be around. And unfortunately, so will George Bush.