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- <text id=91TT0617>
- <title>
- Mar. 25, 1991: No Donkeys In This Horse Race
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Mar. 25, 1991 Boris Yeltsin:Russia's Maverick
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 24
- No Donkeys in This Horse Race
- </hdr><body>
- <p>As Bush savors the gulf victory and lengthens his odds for 1992,
- the Democrats shy away from the starting gate
- </p>
- <p>By Margaret Carlson--Reported by Laurence I.
- Barrett/Washington
- </p>
- <p> The only thing more embarrassing to the Democrats than the
- spectacle of seven dwarfs scrambling for the presidential
- nomination 20 months before the election is the absence of any
- candidates at all. At this point in the run-up to the 1988
- voting, a bomb blast in Des Moines' Savery Hotel would have
- wiped out much of the Democratic field of candidates and most
- of the political press corps. Now Iowans just sit and watch the
- hogs fatten.
- </p>
- <p> If few Democrats seemed eager to run before Jan. 15, the
- gulf war has done little to whet anyone's appetite. Running
- against an incumbent President is hard enough; running against
- a triumphant Commander in Chief is nearly impossible, no matter
- how much bunting a candidate drapes himself in. Campaigning is
- often absurd under any circumstances--a gaggle of politicians
- asking to be taken seriously while begging to be liked. Who
- wants to leave himself or herself open to the sort of antics
- of elections past--Ronald Reagan grabbing the microphone he
- paid for in New Hampshire, Bruce Babbitt comparing himself
- unfavorably to a talking horse, Pierre Dupont IV pleading to
- be called Pete--while the President is welcoming back his
- victorious troops and addressing a flag-waving joint session
- of Congress?
- </p>
- <p> Jay Leno joked last week that Saddam Hussein's humiliation
- should be made complete by choosing him as the 1992 Democratic
- nominee. The fear of such ridicule--and the bad odor
- Democrats attach to their has-runs--are two reasons why no
- one is racing to set up phone banks in Davenport, Iowa. Says
- Democratic Party treasurer Bob Farmer: "The party has got into
- the habit of eating its nominees for lunch if they lose."
- </p>
- <p> Congressman Richard Gephardt, who had made Iowa his second
- home by February 1987, denies both that he is running again and
- that Farmer will be his top money man. "We have no campaign
- staff because we have no campaign," huffs press spokeswoman
- Deborah Johns. The strongest signal that Senator Lloyd Bentsen
- will not try again is his rejoining the exclusive private clubs
- from which he resigned during his vice-presidential bid. But
- fear of ridicule has not kept George McGovern, who lost 49
- states in 1972, from announcing that if someone didn't get into
- this race soon, he would.
- </p>
- <p> That's the kind of suicidal challenge that Democrats, who
- prefer running against each other to running against a
- Republican, usually rise to. So far, it has not been enough to
- draw out dark horse Bob Kerrey, the Nebraska Senator whose vote
- against using force in the gulf is offset by his Vietnam War
- record. Yet it did bring out one dark, dark horse: former
- Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, who announced he might run
- while fellow liberal Michael Dukakis was vacationing in Hawaii
- and unavailable for comment.
- </p>
- <p> The war seems to have obliterated the nomination chances of
- Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam Nunn, who voted
- against force in the gulf, and raised those of Tennessee
- Senator Albert Gore, who was for it. Predicts Maryland state
- chairman and fund raiser Nathan Landow: "As things stand now,
- Gore has the best shot. The vote on the war was important." The
- irony is that his pro-war vote, a prerequisite for having a
- chance in the general election, could deny Gore his dovish
- party's bid. It is not lost on his colleagues that every time
- Gore defends their vote against force, he gets to rub in the
- fact that he chose right on the biggest foreign-policy issue
- of the past decade. When asked last week, Gore went so far as
- to say he was "actively thinking about" running. Other "go"
- signals: he looks 20 lbs. thinner, and he has $1 million left
- over from his 1990 Senate campaign.
- </p>
- <p> Until now, Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder has been the
- most visible noncandidate, crisscrossing the country giving
- speeches, wooing deep pockets in Hollywood and devising a
- catchy slogan--"the New Mainstream." He's even survived what
- might have been a fatal blunder after flying on a state-owned
- aircraft to visit former model Patricia Kluge, recently
- divorced from one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. For good
- measure, Wilder appointed Kluge, star of the soft-porn movie
- Nine Ages of Nakedness, to the board of visitors of the
- University of Virginia. But running in a race without
- challengers means never having to say you're sorry. When the
- episode became public, Wilder simply reimbursed the state
- $3,707 for the plane ride and said of Kluge, "We're friends."
- Gary Hart, call your PAC manager.
- </p>
- <p> As nonrunners go, no one can compete with Zen candidate
- Mario Cuomo, who by never running always looms as the front
- runner. Cuomo trumped Wilder last month by announcing that he
- doesn't plan to make an announcement that he is not running in
- '92. Is that perfectly clear?
- </p>
- <p> War has unintended consequences--and improving the
- presidential campaign by shortening it is not the least of
- them. There are even those, such as Al From, director of the
- Democratic Leadership Council, who gamely argue that "the war
- may turn out to be the best thing that has happened to the
- Democratic Party in years. It provided a real shock to the
- system at a phase in the cycle when we can rethink our
- approach." That may prove hopelessly optimistic. But one thing
- seems true: from their current below-sea-level crouch, the
- Democrats have nowhere to spring but up.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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