POLITICAL WRAP

August 13, 1999
		Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot and Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant discuss the political weight behind the Iowa straw poll.

The Online NewsHour's Iowa straw poll index. Special Emphasis: What are the topics America's leaders need to address? Online Forum: What issues do you think should shape election 2000? Aug. 10, 1999: NewsHour essayists discuss election 2000. Aug. 6, 1999: A look at how other Republican candidates are weathering the media storm over George W. Bush. Aug. 6, 1999: Four police chiefs discuss election 2000. July 29, 1999: Weekly newspaper editors look at the 2000 election. July 23, 1999: Another look at viewer e-mail about election 2000. July 13, 1999: Former White House science advisors discuss election issues. July 9, 1999: NewsHour viewers' e-mail on election 2000. July 6, 1999: "Genius Grant" winners discuss their views on the upcoming elections. June 29, 1999: Regional editorial page editors discuss the election. June 28, 1999: Four lawyers look at the election's impact on the Supreme Court. June 24, 1999: Historians reflect on the needed debates. June 17, 1999: Vice President Gore kicks off his presidential campaign. June 14, 1999: The media phenomenon surrounding George W. Bush. March 5, 1999: Shields and Gigot on the 2000 presidential candidates. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the media and the White House.	TERENCE SMITH: Now, political analysis from Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot and Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant. They are both in Des Moines tonight. Mark Shields is on vacation. Gentlemen, welcome. You've both been there this week. Paul, let me ask you, what's it been like in Iowa this week? PAUL GIGOT: Well, except for the temperature, which is summery, it feels an awful lot like the caucuses in February usually are. There's a kind of manic intensity to the campaigns. There are too many of us reporter types around. You bump into one another. Everybody's trying to meet and greet voters at different events in Des Moines, but also around the state. So it feels a lot like we're in the middle of a primary season here, not six months early. TERENCE SMITH: Does it feel real to you, Tom? TOM OLIPHANT: Well, Terry, I've got a fresh quote from Elizabeth Dole. She says, "This is a completely real event." So it must be true. Though I must say it really doesn't feel that way. Part of it is what I call the Des Moines problem. On some days, Des Moines can look like "K" Street in Washington. You walk around and you would see too many people that you know. The rest of the state is very interesting, but the hothouse atmosphere around here is borderline ridiculous.
	Winning in Iowa
	TERENCE SMITH: Well, let's have your fearless forecasts. You've been there, you've been talking to people, both of you. Paul, who are the likely winners and losers in this beauty contest? PAUL GIGOT: You're going to put me on the spot so early in this segment, Terry? TERENCE SMITH: Imagine that. PAUL GIGOT: I think the conventional wisdom is that George Bush is going to emerge here as the front-runner. I think that's probably true. But the interesting question is: How big? He has a chance here to really blow away the establishment side of the field; that is, the Elizabeth Dole, Dan Quayle, Lamar Alexander. If he gets more than 50 percent, he could leave them and they trail the pack, he could really finish off that part of the Republican contest, leaving only the conservatives to battle him. So I'd look for how much he wins if in fact he does. And the other -- TERENCE SMITH: All right. Go ahead, I'm sorry. PAUL GIGOT: Well, then, the other question is: Who trails? And right now I think Steve Forbes is doing quite well here, and I think has a good chance to finish certainly second and we'll see how well he can deliver his votes, but he's got a very slick operation here. He's much more organized. He learned a lesson from '96 when he came in here really right at the end, said, "I can win just with an air war and a message." Now he's got a ground campaign and it's a pretty slick one. TERENCE SMITH: Tom, what's your feeling, just having talked to people and spent the week in the state? TOM OLIPHANT: Well, I just left Bush about 120 miles East of here in Cedar Rapids, Terry, and his campaign is very cocky going into this thing and in fact so is he. They really want that 50 percent showing, and they, at any rate, expect to get it. And in addition, they are looking for about a 20-point spread between Bush and what they expect will be Steve Forbes. That's a pretty high bar. Forbes believes that he can frustrate them. I think one of the surprises this week is that Steve Forbes appears to me, anyway, to have done an excellent job of consolidating both the economic conservative and the religious conservative vote here in Iowa to the extent people are going to participate tomorrow. And he has the potential, because of the diligent way he's been campaigning around the state, of finishing a surprisingly strong second. The third person that is so hard to figure out right now is Elizabeth Dole. I was at a focus group meeting of Republican voters last night here, and in the metro areas of the state, she and George Bush look like the candidates. I just don't know that she has the resources to get her supporters to this event in Ames the way Bush and Forbes do with their resources.
	A transformation of work.
	TERENCE SMITH: Paul, you talked about what Bush could accomplish with a win of more than 50 percent. What's the other side of that coin? What if he doesn't meet the expectations that Tom was talking about? PAUL GIGOT: Well, he lets some of these other candidates live to fight on. I was -- I met with Lamar Alexander earlier this week, and he's one of those on the bubble. He really feels he has to have a strong third to carry on. And his argument, he's told me, he said, "look, I'm very grateful for George W. Bush to give us this opportunity. If he hadn't played here, we would have continued on for six months with the money and the media and the endorsements being the real only game. But with this event where you actually can tally something, even if it's not a normal election, but you can show some votes, Lamar Alexander feels he might have a chance to show he has some organization here, he's one of the top three or four, and then get out to fight another day and hope the next six months go better than the last six. TERENCE SMITH: Tom, who strikes you as the most vulnerable, the ones that might have to drop out? TOM OLIPHANT: Well, Paul just mentioned one of them, Lamar Alexander. This has the feel of Last Chance Gulch for him. Everybody from around the country who's been with him is basically here this weekend trying to get him that third place finish. If he doesn't get it, it would appear to be over as far as his viability is concerned. I think the other one who is at death's door is Former Vice President Dan Quayle. Steve Forbes, in his campaigning has blotted out a lot of the other people who could have been the conservative alternative to Governor Bush, and I think Dan Quayle has been one of them up to this moment. And without a tremendous surprise tomorrow, his candidacy is on the line, too. TERENCE SMITH: Paul, we saw in Margaret's piece the Alexander ad that focused on the money being spent by George W. Bush and of course by Steve Forbes. Is there any discernible backlash developing in Iowa among the people that you've talked to on this issue?
	A backlash against big money?
	PAUL GIGOT: No, not that I've been able to pick up, Terry. I really can't see one. If there's a backlash building at all, it's the argument that Lamar Alexander and some of the others use that the Republicans shouldn't want to put this away for George W. Bush so early because you need a contest. You don't want a nominee who goes into -- against the Democrats not having been even faced a primary, having slid right through with an easier race than even Eisenhower had in 1952. That's resonating a little bit -- that and the fact that he hasn't spent very much time here. I mean, George Bush has been here I think eight days total. Orrin hatch, who just got in the race on January 1st, has been here 11 days. So if there's anything backlash at all-- and I don't think it's large-- I think those are the issues that sit around. TERENCE SMITH: Tom? TOM OLIPHANT: Yes. I would just add to that it's not so much backlash, but I have noticed a concern among active Republicans, including a lot of Bush supporters. And the worry is that, you know, this isn't love for a lot of them yet. It is like. And there hasn't been a second date, much less anything more serious than that. And the concern that I hear expressed is that Bush needs to fill in this picture more completely. Otherwise, he is too much a creature of poll numbers and financial resources and the like. And I found it interesting this week that the concern about money extends to some of Bush's own supporters here. TERENCE SMITH: Now, you're saying all this, both of you, Paul, as though this mattered in a specific way. It matters in a general way, I guess, is that the point? PAUL GIGOT: What do you mean, what matters, the money? TERENCE SMITH: Well, in the sense that it doesn't elect anybody, it doesn't select a delegate, it doesn't move the process forward except in media terms.
	Staying competitive after Iowa
	PAUL GIGOT: Right. Well, but media and donor terms. In perception terms. I mean if you are a former Vice President of the United States and you finish somewhere south of Gary Bauer, how are you, like Dan Quayle might, how are you going to tell your donors, "I can win?" You don't think he's going to ask them to give up money. That's a hard case to make unless you can show some level of competitiveness, some ability to make sure that you can at least get a message out there and make it a contest. And that's why it's real. TOM OLIPHANT: I think Paul is exactly right. But I'd just add another dimension to it. The old cliché about Iowa is that its purpose is not to anoint winners but to winnow the field. I think, in a nine-candidate, ten-candidate field, there has been a need for some way to sort of pre-winnow the field and to create a first tier. And better that 15,000 or so activists in Ames do it tomorrow than people like us or politicians in smoke-filled rooms. TERENCE SMITH: Paul, if some of these candidates do not do well, like Pat Buchanan, does that lead to a greater possibility of a third party this year? PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think we're going to get a third party, Terry, because there's that $14 million the Reform Party gets, and that's a prize that somebody is going to want to go for. There has been some talk about Pat Buchanan, if he doesn't do well-- and I think frankly, he's not somebody who looks to have a real energy behind him this time. This is his third run. Some of his social message has been taken away by Gary Bauer and Steve Forbes this time -- some of his economic message -- while it might play here in the farm belt, doesn't so well because even though it's hurting here economically, farmers are free traders. TERENCE SMITH: Go ahead. Excuse me. PAUL GIGOT: If he doesn't do well, I think you might see him begin to entertain thoughts of a third-party run. And I wouldn't put that out of the question at all. TERENCE SMITH: And that money would look attractive to him, of course. PAUL GIGOT: It would be very attractive. That's an awful lot of money to get your message out. TOM OLIPHANT: Tom, there was one other name that was raised this week, Warren Beatty? TOM OLIPHANT: Lord. Terry, I had to go to a hog auction yesterday south of here, and I got to tell you, there was no mention of Warren Beatty among the pig farmers that I talked to there. In fact, nobody even knew who he is. And people who think that media -- that buzz is something that bumblebees do. I mean I've tried to look into this, and I guess Republicans would like it if Warren Beatty came into this because perhaps he'd take press attention away from Governor Bush's private life. I think Democrats would probably prefer Warren's sister, Shirley Maclaine. TERENCE SMITH: Okay, I'm afraid we have to leave it there in the hog farms. Thank you both.