Going Down The Middle

Whether or not the underdog Straight Talk Express runs out of gas on its way to the Republican nomination, all the other candidates - Republicans and Democrats - would do well to take a page from the McCain campaign playbook.

John McCain has accomplished something we haven't seen in some time - appeal to the vital center while running in his party's primary elections. This is the sort of feat for which Ronald Reagan is remembered.

And if McCain does not emerge as the GOP nominee, the Republican Party may have ample opportunity in the months ahead to wonder if they should have better recognized this talent for the truly special thing it is.

Whether it, in fact, turns out to be Gore against Bush, or McCain versus Gore, or any permutation thereof, this much we already know: The battle is for the middle ground. In politics, especially presidential politics, the decisive votes are in the center.

Each side has its dedicated core voters. In the nomination process, in the intra-party caucuses and primaries, these cores sometimes get split. But come the general election, when it's showdown time, Republican versus Democratic, each party's core comes together.

That leaves the margin of victory to voters in and around the American political middle, those with loose, if any, political affiliation. Folks who are willing to overlook the label of Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, for a candidate they like on the basis of character, personality, style or even on the issues - or just plain old "gut feeling."

Again, for emphasis, it must be underscored that this generality applies more to general elections than to primaries. The party and ideological faithful, usually the people furthest from the center, can be and often are decisive at the polls in the nominating process.

It wasn't true in New Hampshire, where John McCain fashioned his blowout triumph over George Bush. It was true in South Carolina, where Bush rode the Republican hard-right's organization, money and messages to a big win.

The self-described "Religious Right" - including conservative preachers Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson - are part of the deep core of the Republican Party, one that runs deeper in South Carolina than perhaps anywhere else in the country. And they delivered big-time for Bush in the Palmetto State.

Yes, it's true they acted partly out of self-interest, to preserve a campaign finance system that helps to keep them in powerful positions and allows them to spend freely and make their influence felt. But it's also true that Bush worked especially hard and effectively to get out their vote after New Hampshire. He went to the right places, said the right things the right way. He got the Religious Right's all-out support the old-fashioned way: He earned it. But now he owes them.

Which is part of the point of this writing. Bush has moved the image of himself pretty far to the right, giving up, at least temporarily, some of the middle grounhe will need to win in November, if he's the nominee.

No doubt Gore liked what he saw out of South Carolina. In the general election, Bush won't be running right the way he did in South Carolina. But Gore - or Bradley, if by some miracle he becomes the nominee - would turn that George W. Bush into a target in front of the voting public.

That doesn't mean the Democrats will prevail in their appeals to voters in the middle and win in November. McCain could be the Republican nominee, after all.

And Bradley has succeeded in pushing Gore further to the left than he would ideally like to be. Such is the price of winning the core Democratic Party voters in the nominating contests.

But, by any reasonable analysis, Gore has not moved as far to the left as Bush has to the right. He hasn't had to. Bradley's threat to Gore's nomination has not been nearly as substantial as the challenge McCain has posed to the Bush campaign.

An example is Bush's appearance at South Carolina's Bob Jones University. Rightly or wrongly, justly or unjustly, that school is widely viewed as having not only anti-black, but also anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic roots.

By going there and not clearly disassociating himself from the worst of the school's image and reputation, Bush helped himself with the hard-right necessary to win the South Carolina primary. But he also handed the Democrats a club with which they will pound him.

Gore, as yet, hasn't had to do make any comparable move in the other direction.

But the Bush camp professes not to be worried. First of all, they argue that Gore is already "so far into the liberal left column" that they can and will beat him like a rented mule in the general election.

Second, Team Bush figures they can embarrass, if not humiliate, Gore enough with revelations about "Chinese money in the 1996 campaign" to keep him from staking any claim to the middle.

This is going to be a very interesting and lively general election campaign. Years with no incumbent president running usually are.

If either of the present underdogs in their respective parties come from behind now to win nomination, well, that will certainly make it even more interesting. And the fight for the center will be redefined.

And let us not forget that Ross Perot's Reform Party is still alive, if not well. And, despite present indications, it may yet become a factor.

If the Republican and Democratic front-runners of the moment become the standard bearers, they'll each have a lot to beat the other over the head with as they fight for that crucial, elusive piece of political real estate known as the center.

The last two times we had a presidential election in which an incumbent didn't run were l968 - Democratic Vice President Hubert Humphrey vs. former Republican Vice President Richard Nixon - and 1988 - Republican Vice President George Bush vs. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

The '68 campaign was wild, woolly and beathtakingly close. It wasn't decided until the very last days, even hours of the campaign. Humphrey charged from behind, but like the Tennessee Titans in this year's Super Bowl, came up inches short.

The voting middle went for Nixon. History records it as one of the most exciting presidential elections this country has seen.

In 1988, George Bush the elder claimed the center by making "liberal" a dirty word. We remember it as one of the nastier elections in recent years, but not a close one.

Will this one be like '68, '88, or a little of both? Stay tuned.