-Caveat Lector-
William F. Buckley, Jr. - ON THE RIGHT
Friday, January 7, 2000
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**William F. Buckley, Jr. is on vacation. We have a story
from George Will for today's issue**
In Cactus Jack's footsteps
By George Will
WASHINGTON--Given the homogenization of America, and especially
of its political class, there is not apt to be anything again
remotely like the Democratic tickets of 1932 and 1936. As
speculating about vice presidential nominations begins, remember
when the top of the Democratic ticket, Franklin Roosevelt, came
from the top of American society--the Hudson Valley
squirearchy--and his running mate came from America's frontier.
John Nance ("Cactus Jack") Garner, who died in 1967 at age 98,
was, as Alistair Cooke writes in his new book ("Memories of the
Great & the Good"), the last public man linking "America of the
Civil War and America of the nuclear age." Son of a Confederate
cavalry trooper, he was born in a one-room cabin in Texas' Red
River Valley, in 1868, before the Apache raids had ended. As a
child he knew a woman who had been scalped. A judge at 25,
congressman at 34, at the end of FDR's second term Garner went
home, vowing never to cross the Potomac again. Never did.
Back then, politics had more certainties than it now has, two
of which were that the South would vote Democratic and no
Southerner could be elected president. Frequently the South's
consolation was a Democratic vice presidential candidate. (Harry
Truman's running mate came from a border state, Kentucky; Adlai
Stevenson's two came from Alabama and Tennessee; John Kennedy's
from Texas.)
Nowadays politics is more fluid, and presidential nominees of
both parties are tempted to think imaginatively about running
mates, as with Elizabeth Dole. Although her droll husband, with
his penchant for making a difficult situation excruciating,
semi-endorsed John McCain's candidacy while she was still a
candidate, she has endorsed George W. Bush, enkindling talk
about her as Bush's running mate.
Would she cure the Republicans' "gender gap"? That gap needs
defining.
In 1992 President Bush ran better among married women (40 percent)
than among men generally (38 percent). In 1996 Bob Dole did
almost as well among married women (43 percent) as among all
men (44 percent). The striking Bush and Dole weaknesses were
among unmarried women (31 and 28 percent respectively). But
this is less a measure of gender difference than class difference:
Unmarried women have lower average incomes and higher insecurities
than married women. Is Elizabeth Dole an answer to essentially
class anxieties?
Picking a running mate is the first thing a presidential nominee
does with much of the country paying attention. (A poll conducted
Oct. 25-Nov. 7 for the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the
University of Pennsylvania found that 59 percent of the electorate
does not know that Bill Bradley ever played basketball, 76 percent
does not know that John McCain is a senator, 85 percent does not
know that Bradley and Al Gore were senators.) The presidential
candidate wants his vice presidential choice to have two immediate,
summertime consequences, one autumn consequence (actually,
nonconsequence) and one or two possible Election Day consequences.
He wants voters immediately to say, "That vice presidential
nominee is presidential." The second desired summertime
consequence is for the choice to change adventitiously the
public's perception of the presidential nominee.
During the autumn he wants his running mate to do no harm--to
make no mistakes. On Election Day he wants his running mate to
cause a modest shift in an important and closely contested state
or, more ambitiously, to cause a consequential portion of a
particular group to move his way nationally, perhaps tilting
several states.
Dole's credentials might satisfy the summertime criteria. Her
disciplined campaigning would satisfy the autumn criterion.
However, she is only loosely associated with a state (North
Carolina). And regarding the more ambitious of the two Election
Day objectives, it is hard to find precedent for a "running mate
effect" that transcends the running mate's state.
Because of doubts about Bush's intellectual weight and steadiness,
if he is nominated his choice of running mate should given him
a gravitas infusion. It might be Dick Cheney--pro-life and
well-seasoned, he has been a congressman and White House chief
of staff, and was secretary of defense during the Gulf War. (He
currently works, and last voted, in Dallas, but retains a
residence in Wyoming.)
Or, to tilt a state, perhaps Michigan's pro-life Gov. John Engler.
Or, if Bush thinks pro-life dissent would be mild (not likely)
and perhaps beneficial (even less likely--right-to-life people
will provide much of whatever passion there is behind a Bush
candidacy), Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge--decorated Vietnam
veteran, strong in suburbs, Catholic but moderately pro-choice.
Such choices might seem unimaginative. But in presidential
campaigns, imagination may be overrated.
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