DOLE IN AUGUST

	August 5, 1996
	Margaret Warner sits in with David Broder, Elizabeth Arnold, and Ron Brownstein as they discuss the Dole economic plan and the Republican platform squabbles heading into convention. Jeffrey Kaye also has a report.

MARGARET WARNER: We begin with the political ramifications of candidate Dole's new economic plan. For that, we're joined by David Broder of the Washington Post, Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times, and Elizabeth Arnold of National Public Radio. Welcome all of you. Ron, what's behind this, what's the political story behind this new Dole proposal? RON BROWNSTEIN, Los Angeles Times: From a political perspective purely, I think there were three reasons why they were drawn to doing something like this. First, you've had a race that's been stuck in place essentially since February, with Dole fifteen to twenty points down. I think they felt they needed to do something dramatic that would catch people's attention and get them to take a second look at this candidacy. Second, tax--cutting taxes, with some exceptions of deficit hawks, is an issue that unifies Republicans. And Dole really hates to focus on that. After the last few months of issues like abortion and gun control and others that tend to divide the party, I think he needed something that will bring the party back together. He is suffering high defection among Republicans in polls. And third, there are many people inside the Dole campaign, including many of those who are involved in drafting this plan, who believe that controlling the agenda is the key to controlling, the key to winning the White House. And no matter what else is going on, they would rather spend the month of August and September and October talking about taxes than talking about Medicare cuts or regulating tobacco or assault weapons. MARGARET WARNER: Is that how you see the genesis of this? DAVID BRODER, Washington Post: I think so. And perhaps just one other point--Haley Barbour, the Republican Party chairman, has argued for three and a half years now that the big mistake in 1992 and what hurt them, in his view, at their convention in Houston was that the focus was all on the social issues, which as Ron says are divisive within the Republican Party, and where on abortion they have a position that is a minority position in the country as a whole. They didn't have an economic message to deliver at Houston, and so all the focus was on the other issues. George Bush didn't get to that issue until three weeks after Labor Day I guess it was, so they certainly wanted to have the economic issues out front and center before their convention opens next week. MARGARET WARNER: Elizabeth, we just saw how Leon Panetta, what the argument's going to be that this is a total flip flop for Dole. How did the campaign internally, how did they assess that risk, that downside risk, and how do they plan to try to deal with that? ELIZABETH ARNOLD, National Public Radio: Well, I don't think they can just ignore that risk, but I think that they don't need to worry about that right now. If you look at some recent polls, people are more likely to believe that Sen. Dole would be more apt to raise taxes than Clinton right now. So they've got a big problem there that they have to address, and I think today was a first step toward addressing that. MARGARET WARNER: Now there was also another kind of a tax plan, wasn't there, that there was a big debate about. What was the story behind that? MS. ARNOLD: The story behind that is opted not to go in that direction. I mean, it's been a big push and pull and no one really knows what's going on because it's actually happening in Sen. Dole's head and push comes to shove and he went this way. MR. BROWNSTEIN: One official though did tell me that one of the reasons they decided not to go the other way, which was a repeal of the 1993 Clinton tax increased coupled with a payroll tax deduction, is they found that this approach actually had broader benefits than the repeal, which tended to concentrate most of the benefits on the more affluent. It's ironic commentary, you know, because Clinton has always said that his tax increase really was targeted toward the rich and then for the Dole campaign to come back and find that repealing it would benefit mostly the rich indirectly sort of supports the President's contention. MARGARET WARNER: But, David, did any of Dole's old deficit hawk friends like former Senator Warren Rudman or Pete Domenici, did they have any voice in this? Did they have a seat at the table? MR. BRODER: I think they all had a voice but in the end, Sen. Dole said--you remember back at the Republican National Committee meeting, was it two years ago almost now, he said, if you want a Ronald Reagan, I'll be Ronald Reagan. This is being Ronald Reagan. This is doing what Republicans have come to believe is the essential message. The difference is that Ronald Reagan did not have Ross Perot on this case and the risk for Dole here is not that Democrats will beat him up. They were going to beat him up no matter what he said. The real risk for him, I think, is that Ross Perot will come in starting this Sunday at his convention in Long Beach saying these people are promising you candy; they're not serious about getting rid of the deficit. And if Dole's going to win this election, he has to take votes away not just from Bill Clinton but from Ross Perot. MS. ARNOLD: And there was some sense of that candy in, in Chicago today. I mean, he was preaching to the choir. It was the Chamber of Commerce. What's not to like? The warmest applause for the capital gains cut, but I spoke to some people afterwards, and one man said to me, well, first of all, I'm not sure he's going to get elected, but second of all, if he did get elected, I'm not so sure he would really follow through with this. MR. BROWNSTEIN: You know, that's another difference from the Reagan era. We've had George Bush and Bill Clinton, George Bush promising not to raise taxes and doing so, Bill Clinton promising to cut taxes and not doing so. People after that experience, I think, tend to be very skeptical of politicians branding tax cuts. MARGARET WARNER: David, is this an issue, though, that the White House would like to have remained front and center? MR. BRODER: Not particularly, because I don't think Clinton has any great credibility at this point on the tax issue because of what Ron said. No. I think they'd much rather have people talking about what a wonderful economy this is. MARGARET WARNER: Now although the presidential candidate, of course, decides what to run on, party regulars at the convention also hope to have a voice in that, and we're going to be back to talk about that, but first this report from Jeff Kaye, who's out in San Diego from KCET-Los Angeles. (PEOPLE SAYING PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE) JEFFREY KAYE: As the Platform Committee hearing got underway in San Diego today, the Dole campaign was hoping its economic plan would be adopted by the Republican Party. Former GOP Presidential contender Patrick Buchanan is also trying to influence the platform with his own economic program. Last week, Buchanan issued a manifesto advocating repeal of the 1990 and 1993 tax hikes and an across-the-board flat tax. PATRICK BUCHANAN, Republican Presidential Candidate: There's no single area where we have greater unanimity in the Republican Party than on the issue that we are the low tax party and we are the small government party, and we are for tax cuts, and they are for tax increases. It is the small government party versus the big government party. SPOKESMAN: Shouldn't we be talking about job growth? It comes from the private sector. Job growth comes from-- JEFFREY KAYE: Economics is only one of the items on the Platform Committee's broad agenda. This morning, the Committee's 107 delegates began meeting in sub-committees, each group tackling a separate subject. The thorniest and most divisive controversy for the Republicans is abortion. SUSAN CULLMAN, Republican Coalition for Choice: We have been from day one saying that we should take abortion out of politics and off the Republican Party platform. JEFFREY KAYE: Abortion rights advocates came here to urge the party to soften or abandon its strong anti-abortion stance, while abortion foes want the party to stick to its position. Since 1984, the Republican Party has supported a constitutional amendment that would make abortion a crime. Both sides are threatening what could be a bruising floor fight at next week's convention unless they get their way. REP. BILL McCOLLUM, (R) Florida: And a lot of the attention of the media has been focused on abortion and the issues of human life. JEFFREY KAYE: Florida Congressman Bill McCollum co-chairs the subcommittee handling the abortion issue. He is hoping to adopt conciliatory platform language that would head off a floor fight. REP. BILL McCOLLUM: I think it's preferable not to have a floor fight because you don't want to focus the party's attention or the public's attention just on one issue. Whether that's abortion or immigration or crime or whatever it is, you want the entire grouping of views to be projected as much as possible by the time you get to the final hours of a convention, the floor, itself. I think it is very important that Bob Dole and his running mate and the broad platform upon which we stand be the basis of what comes out of the convention. JEFFREY KAYE: This afternoon, delegates to the Platform Committee were to begin debate on a draft of the platform that tries to have it both ways on the subject of abortion. The 50-page working document contains language that was worked out by Sen. Dole and by Congressman Henry Hyde, chairman of the Platform Committee. The draft keeps the traditional anti-abortion language but adds a clarifying statement which reads, 'We recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing views on issues like abortion, capital punishment, term limits, and trade.' RALPH REED, Christian Coalition: We are united. JEFFREY KAYE: This morning, representatives of anti-abortion groups said the compromise language is unacceptable. RALPH REED: Our organizations are united, and the pro-family movement is united in opposing an abortion specific tolerance plank. JEFFREY KAYE: Bay Buchanan, the sister and campaign manager of Patrick Buchanan, said the Republican Party should not tolerate diversity on the abortion issue. ANGELA 'BAY' BUCHANAN, Chair, Buchanan Campaign: We have agreed that there--that--and accept the idea of a call for diversity, but if you have a true call for diversity, you don't put it specifically in the section on life. You put it at the beginning. You put it at the end to refer to everything in the platform. So we feel that first we have to change it so it's not specific to life, and when it talks about issues such as it doesn't mention it doesn't mention abortion, because we don't believe abortion should be put equal to our moral equivalency of immigration or trade, or limited terms. It is not. It's about the life of a child. JEFFREY KAYE: Do you anticipate a floor fight on this? ANGELA 'BAY' BUCHANAN: We are prepared for a floor fight. We have the states. We have the energy and the commitment of our delegates to take it the full distance. JEFFREY KAYE: Abortion rights activists feel just as strongly; they want all abortion language deleted from the platform entirely. JENNIFER STOCKMAN, Republican Coalition for Choice: We all agree that it's fine to disagree and to us, the only logical way to disagree is to take the abortion language out of the Republican platform, which has not been done, or yank the plank. That is such a reasonable, neutral position. JEFFREY KAYE: The committee is planning to vote on a platform either Thursday or Friday. MARGARET WARNER: Now back to David Broder, Ron Brownstein, and Elizabeth Arnold for more on the platform. David, after Bob Dole's, all his efforts to finesse this issue, where do you think it stands, abortion that is? MR. BRODER: The Platform Committee and the convention as a whole is anti-abortion in its sentiments. And I think if it comes to a vote, the anti-abortion forces will prevail but the Dole people will do everything in their power over the next few days to see that this thing does not come to a floor vote. MR. BROWNSTEIN: Both sides are sort of brandishing their sabers at each other at this point, each threatening a floor fight. It looks like each of them has enough strength in the Platform Committee to report out an alternative plank if they wanted to carry it that far. So there's no assurance for Bob Dole that he can put this to bed, although I do think that cooler heads may prevail in the end on both sides. MARGARET WARNER: But this language that we just saw is just another revision of a revision. MR. BROWNSTEIN: Today he revised again, he moved further toward the abortion opponents and softening the tolerance plank. And what you heard in the report was they wanted to go further yet and remove the word “abortion” from it, which was the point of it in the first place. I mean, why keep it in at all at that point? MS. ARNOLD: But I think that Dole has sufficiently finessed this because I don't think that the American public is really finely tuned into this and following this day to day, fights over the--within the Platform Committee. If anything, there's a general sense that he's for tolerance. There are some other possible fights. They're always vowing these floor fights over gun control, over trade even, and, again, I think Dole today took a step towards saying, no, no, the issue that Patrick Buchanan talked about during the campaign was that people were worried about the long-term economic security, and I took steps toward that, toward addressing that today. I think they've been playing this pretty well. MR. BROWNSTEIN: The bigger picture, though, here is that in polling all summer, Bob Dole is suffering an extraordinary level of defection among Republicans. If you go back to every election we've had polling for, Republicans almost always have held--Republican Presidential candidates have held their own party in line better than Democrats. And now Bob Dole is losing 20 percent of Republicans to Bill Clinton and 25 percent in a three-way race. That defection is concentrated among moderates who tend to be pro-choice. It's not the only issue. Gun control, abortion, the whole sort of flavor of the party that has become increasing conservative and dominated by a southern conservative wing, Dole has to figure out how to speak to those people if he wants to get back in the game in places like Illinois, New Jersey, and California. MR. BRODER: Margaret, let me suggest this to you. If the Dole economic package that we've seen today really does give some kind of a lift to his campaign, by the end of this week he'll see the pro-choice Republican governors kind of backing away from the threat of a floor fight. If they think that he still looks like a loser, they're going to pursue their own politics on the convention floor at Dole's expense and make the dramatic gesture for their own constituency and their own campaign purposes to force the fight. MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that? MS. ARNOLD: I agree with that. MARGARET WARNER: Now some of the pro-choice forces, including people like Olympia Snowe, the Senator from Maine, are saying that they think a floor fight would be good for the moderates whoa re trying to stand for reelection because at least it would show the party welcomes diversity. I mean, what does the Dole campaign think of that argument? They just want to avoid a floor fight at all costs? MS. ARNOLD: They do want to avoid a floor--I mean, there are some people who say they should be paying Ralph Reed and all these people to march out of the convention because that would send a clear signal to the moderates that you're talking about, that he's their man. They don't need--they don't need a divisive fight at all. I mean, what they really need and what they want is a message that this party is mainstream and moderate, and that's probably what they're going to get. I mean, they really have, have--they're doing everything they can not to repeat what happened in 1992. And I have every reason to predict that that will happen. I mean, that it won't repeat ‘92. MR. BROWNSTEIN: You know, their interest in a floor fight is probably suggested by the fact that they have scheduled platform acceptance for Monday afternoon well out of prime time. (laughter) MARGARET WARNER: Now do you think any of these other issues that they're all meeting on and debating, do you all agree with Elizabeth that some of these others could become intense or-- MR. BRODER: I don't see that myself. I mean, immigration is a really intensely felt issue, but it's something that can be finessed with language and probably will be finessed with language. MS. ARNOLD: I mean, they'll always vow floor fights, but I suspect everything will probably pretty much be--especially since the Dole campaign got out front on abortion early on, so it was all in the press, we all talked about it, now it almost--there's sort of a denouement. It's, oh, abortion again. MR. BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, the specifics, I think Elizabeth's right, the specifics of abortion are much less important than sort of the flavor that comes out of this whole thing. I mean, if, in fact, the abortion language that Bob Dole produced is significantly watered down by conservative forces, whether the Platform Committee or on the floor, it's going to be more and more difficult for him to say I am opening up the party, so the atmosphere, the atmospherics are probably more important than the specific words. MARGARET WARNER: Well, thank you all very much. We'll have to leave it there.