But speaking by satellite to ABC station executives last Thursday, Dole let the cat out of the bag – and it was a stray cat. ““We hope to have a plank in our platform that will reach out to all Republicans,’’ he said, confusing planks and preambles. In a separate interview with Peter Jennings, Dole said he wanted to keep existing platform language, though he no longer supported a human-life amendment – which is precisely what the current plank calls for.
It’s not easy to conduct delicate family business in public. But after 35 years of legislative horse trading, that’s exactly what Citizen Dole must do. In the old days, ““unifying the party’’ was something a politician could pull off with quiet deals in a back room. Now you have to do it yourself in the echo chamber of the national media. There is no room for ambiguity, uncertainty or error. Photo ops aren’t enough. You need particulars to pacify skeptics in your own party on issues as touchy as abortion, federal taxes and affirmative action. And you need to overcome the mischief-making of your foes – in this case a White House eager to confuse the GOP base with conservative appeals on crime, welfare and culture. Privately, Clinton spin doctors claimed to welcome demonstrations against him by gay activists in San Francisco last week.
Which is why Dole’s camp moved swiftly after ABC called with word of the candidate’s remarks. It was especially urgent since Dole has never been comfortable talking about abortion. So before newspaper deadlines, aides phoned reporters to explain what the senator was proposing. They faxed a carefully worded release, drafted earlier, around Washington.
The phone-and-fax attack worked, for now. President Clinton made the best of it, playing to his base by noting that Dole still supports ““a constitutional amendment.’’ But GOP figures as divergent as New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and Pat Buchanan supported Dole. There were high-fives at Dole headquarters and, NEWSWEEK has learned, no promise of a convention speech to Buchanan.
The abortion issue isn’t the only family matter Dole must settle. Another is affirmative action. Most conservatives – in both the ““cultural’’ and ““economic’’ wings of the movement – abhor the idea of racial and gender preferences in workplaces and classrooms. The issue is on the ballot in California this fall. Gov. Pete Wilson wants a tough plank against affirmative action. Dole himself cosponsored a bill to ban all federal preferences.
But there’s at least one firm voice on the other side: Colin Powell. The retired general supports affirmative action and wants no part of a party – or a ticket – that doesn’t (page 46). There’s an even more important reason. Affirmative action is popular with female professionals, and Dole desperately needs to close the gender gap.
Dole hasn’t really begun to deal with the most nettlesome Republican squabble: taxes and spending. He must broker a peace between ““green eye shade’’ budget balancers and ““cocktail napkin’’ supply-siders. The balancers believe every tax cut must be paid for by equivalent cuts in spending. But the supply-siders hold that tax cuts generate extra revenue by stimulating the economy. Reagan won in 1980 by championing lower taxes; Bush lost in 1992 by abandoning them.
Dole’s history and instincts are with the budget balancers. In his final days in the Senate, Dole demanded one last vote on a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget. He knew it would lose, and it did. But the vote dovetailed with Republican TV ads and Dole campaign rhetoric in Tennessee and Georgia. ““When it comes to balancing the budget,’’ Dole said in Nashville, ““Bill Clinton’s promises are like the tape in “Mission: Impossible’ – they self-destruct in 10 seconds.''
A child of the Dust Bowl, Dole abhors debt. But he also hates losing elections. Before the primary season began, he made a key decision: to sign a ““no-new-taxes pledge,’’ something he refused to do in 1988. Yet he knows that the ““pledge’’ is the beginning, not the end, of the discussion. The president, Dole knows, will try to blunt the issue by making ““targeted’’ tax cuts. Clinton, for example, has proposed a $1,500-per-year tax credit for college tuition.
Dole, too, is planning to promise specific tax cuts. The question is: how sweeping? One source of ideas was the Kemp Commission, a tax-study group Dole and Newt Gingrich set up last year. It offered one specific proposal: let all workers deduct their payroll taxes. Dole’s own informal council of economic advisers dismissed the idea in a report to him last month. Instead, his panel of six economists – moderate supply-siders Dole brought together as a nod to the Reagan wing – stressed the virtues of an across-the-board income-tax cut. No amount was mentioned. A separate document, NEWSWEEK has learned, was forwarded to top Dole lieutenants last week. To give Dole maximum room to maneuver, the report stepped back from any particular type of tax cut.
Dole is a man surrounded by trial balloons. One was floated by GOP Sen. Spencer Abraham of Michigan, who is pushing a 15 percent across-the-board income-tax cut. Another comes from publisher Steve Forbes, who last week sent Dole a private memo. A more comprehensive plan, it includes a two-tier tax table (28 and 15 percent), expanded dependent deductions and the payroll-tax proposal from the Kemp Commission. It also suggests a capital-gains tax cut and expanded retirement accounts.
Dole aides say they’re in no hurry to come to consensus. The senator says he will announce his decision ““around the convention.’’ One idea being considered, NEWSWEEK has learned, is for Dole to unveil his plan in his acceptance speech – a variant on George Bush’s ““read my lips’’ pledge at the GOP convention in 1988. ““Why not spend the summer in a debate about how best to cut taxes?’’ said Dole campaign manager Scott Reed. ““It will show that the Republican Party is back on the side of cutting taxes.''
But there are risks. One is that Dole’s plan, when it finally emerges, will look like mere political calculation. Reagan, after all, championed his sweeping tax-cut notions from start to finish in 1980. And in his zeal to pacify his own people, Dole is ignoring a deep concern of independent swing voters: that entitlements like Medicare and social security are out of control. In a new report, Medicare’s trustees say the program’s main fund will go broke in 2001 – a year earlier than anticipated.
Medicare is an issue Dole, the man who hates debt, should make a centerpiece of his campaign. But so far the only party likely to place it at the heart of its agenda is Ross Pe- rot’s Reform Party. Former Colorado governor Richard Lamm has indicated he might seek the Reform Party nomination – and that he would focus on reining in entitlements. Nearly two thirds of all federal social spending, Lamm notes, goes to people over 65. Those numbers may one day produce the biggest feud in the American family. But don’t expect Dole – or Clinton – to try to settle it this campaign year.
It’s tax-cut time. Though Clinton has more on the table, Dole is pondering everything from a flat tax to dramatic reductions.
What Clinton Wants What Dole May Do Tax credit: A $300-per-child Tax credit: $500-per-child break for families with break for families making incomes under $75,000. less than $110,000. COST: $9.7 BILLION COST: $25 BILLION Expand IRAs: COST: $1.4 BILLION Expand IRAs: COST: $1.9 BILLION Parents who adopt: $5,000 tax Parents who adopt: $5,000 credit for parents taking on credit for parents taking on a child. COST: $300 MILLION a child. COST: $300 MILLION College Costs: $10,000 Income taxes: 15% cut phased deduction for families making in over 3 years. COST: less than $100,000 with kids $32 BILLION in college, or $1,500-per-child credit for the first two years Capital gains: Slice tax rate of college. COST: $7.2 BILLION from 28% to 14%. COST: $7 BILLION Payroll taxes: Allow workers to deduct payroll taxes at income-tax time. COST: $30 BILLION
