From: "Max B. Sawicky" <sawicky at bellatlantic.net> Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 12:42:14 -0700
Anybody listen to the Republican prez candidates' speeches in Iowa?
Keyes was the most frenetic and extreme, accusing Clinton of treason. Buchanan came close, intimating he would arrest Clinton upon taking the oath of office; the difference is that Buchanan knew he was kidding, whereas Keyes was serious. As usual, Keyes would not shut up when his time was up, so they turned off the microphone until he went away.
Keyes outpolled Quayle (who at one point, said, "I have casted the votes . . . "), so we may regret the passing of Bush's VP into total oblivion.
Buchanan came on with Springstein's "Born in the USA" as theme music. I was waiting to see if they ended the music or otherwise blanked out the line, "went to kill the yellow man," but they didn't. PB made a point of identifying the song when he began his speech. He did his anti-globalism number, including broadsides against trade deals, the 'new world order,' and military interventions into Kosovo etc. One got the feeling part of the audience was very quiet on this, another part the reverse. In a way PB is doing a service by elevating and giving more weight to anti-imperialist themes. If he runs Third Party, he will pretty much guarantee the Dem's victory, barring some kind of improbable Jesse Ventura-like upsurge. (Jesse would not support PB.)
Speeches by Bush and Forbes were unremarkable and surprisingly disjointed, in light of all the money they have to pay speechwriters. Liddy Dole was a little better -- more rhetorical consistency, but also greater conceptual incoherence (get the Federal government out of the classroom, but somehow make sure teachers are in control).
I didn't bother staying up for Lamar, who is beyond oblivion and without entertainment value.
Most often mentioned themes were pro-life, tax cuts, rebuild the military, shrink government, and "the farm crisis." If one fails to touch Social Security surpluses, this makes for an interesting budgeting problem.
Forbes, who came in second, has the most detailed, reactionary economic program -- flat tax and Social Security privatization. He is likely to influence the platform of the party and the campaign. He is aided by the fact of Dole's third place finish, which saps Bush's support. Bush didn't come up a big winner, which also helps. The whole thing looks like a replay of 1996, when Forbes bled Dole in the primaries by spending so much on commercials, and PB created ideological discord. I don't see Bush Jr handling this better than the old pro Dole.
All this looks to be a great set-up for the Dems, IMO. Their incentive to play it cool and centrist means more of a vacuum for progressives to try to occupy. The nuttier and scrambled the Repubs get, the more the DP shifts towards the center, the more of an opening on the left.
mbs