They're hee-eere!

Republicans are fielding an all-star lineup for a wild 2000 presidential primary campaign. But is there really a future president in the bunch?

by Michael Crowley

There is a right way and a wrong way to seize control of the White House. And the Republican Party is currently pursuing both of them at once.

The wrong way, the one being embraced by the conservative ideologues of Congress, is to subversively manipulate the Constitution to force a leadership change the public opposes.

The right way, which has been attracting a growing number of GOP stars over the past few weeks, is a little more old-fashioned and a lot more democratic: running for president.

Yes, the 2000 presidential campaign has begun. And while Vice President Al Gore's aura of inevitability seems to be discouraging many of his serious Democratic challengers, the Republican primary process is shaping up as a wild free-for-all featuring an all-star cast that could include Texas governor George W. Bush, outgoing American Red Cross president Elizabeth Dole, former vice president Dan Quayle, and up to a half dozen others.

Just over a year from now, the final field of candidates will do battle on the frozen steppes of New Hampshire, home to the crucial first primary of the presidential season. And Republicans up north are giddily awaiting the spectacle. "This will be the most open presidential primary that New Hampshire has seen in at least a quarter-century," says state Republican chairman Steve Duprey. "It's wide open, and anyone could win it."

There is a rare unpredictability to this GOP contest. In the past, the party hierarchy has typically fallen into line behind one preordained nominee, as it did for Bob Dole in 1996 and George Bush in 1988. This time the GOP has no obvious choice -- no single candidate who rises above all others in stature, money, experience, or organization.

By contrast, traditionally quarrelsome Democrats are shaping up to be an unusually unified bunch. Al Gore's only competition so far is former New Jersey senator and onetime basketball star Bill Bradley; several other Democrats are balking at a run. This week, liberal Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone joined Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey in the surprise no-show pool, and even House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt, once considered Gore's greatest primary threat, seems likely to stay in Congress. (Massachusetts senator John Kerry will announce his own decision soon.) Nor is Bradley much of a pit bull; his success really depends on Gore's doing himself in.

All of which is bad news for the GOP. While Gore may stroll to his party's nomination, the absence of a clear and unifying leader among Republicans could lead to a chaotic rumble in which party factions -- religious conservatives, supply-siders, populists, social liberals -- run amok and bloody up the candidates.

And yet Republican leaders believe the party will eventually unify around its common goal. "When you've been out of power a while, you want to win," says Duprey. Party activists, he says, will suppress their desire for ideological purity to focus on whether a candidate can beat the Democrats in November.

And at the moment, party leaders think they've got several potential Gore-slayers lined up. Unlike 1996's quirky, little-known faces, the 2000 GOP field will be filled with experienced, high-profile figures. At the moment, for instance, party activists are positively giddy over the thought of political celebrities like Dole, Bush, and Arizona senator John McCain joining the race.

But the emerging field of GOP presidential hopefuls may not be as strong as it looks. Take Bush. Reelected to his second term in November with 69 percent of the vote, the rakish son of the former president is widely described as the early front-runner. Thanks to his moderate views and famous name, he's the darling of party leaders. But while Bush is expected to run, he still hasn't committed. Perhaps he has a clearer grasp than his cheerleaders do of how tough a campaign will be. In a race where personal lives will be under a post-Clinton microscope, for instance, Bush will find his many years of womanizing and heavy drinking publicized endlessly. ("So, what's sex like after 50?" he reportedly asked a matronly friend of his parents at a cocktail party years ago.) Some of his public comments suggest that Bush, a relative newcomer to politics, isn't ready for the trials of a national campaign.

Should he run, not everyone will welcome him. Bush will be harangued by Christian conservatives suspicious of his laissez-faire social philosophy. And in a general election, Bush's ballyhooed moderation will be closely scrutinized. It would be interesting to watch him defend his state's 1998 execution of doe-eyed Karla Faye Tucker, perhaps the most sympathetic death-penalty victim of all time.

(A local footnote: Though Massachusetts governor Paul Cellucci, a long-time ally of the former president, would be a key Bush campaign booster, Republican National Committee man and Cellucci confidante Ron Kaufman dismisses talk that Cellucci would be angling for a federal appointment from a President Bush. "[Bush] is like a sibling," Kaufman says, "and we all want to see our brother do well. And it has nothing to do with what it may or may not get Paul Cellucci down the line.")

The only name that gets GOP activists even more excited than Bush is Dole. Elizabeth Dole, that is. The former would-be First Lady stepped down from the Red Cross last week, hinting about running. With her experience at the Red Cross and as US transportation secretary, Dole has the credentials. Equally important, she's got the campaign touch. Campaigning with her husband in '96, she may have outshined her spouse (Dole had her own campaign staff of 30, her own jet, and her own $1.5 million travel budget). According to Duprey, Dole is the talk of New Hampshire Republicans, who eagerly await her scheduled February 8 visit.

"I really believe this country's ready for a woman president," Dole told the New York Times in 1996. She's right. But are we ready for her? It's hard to see how Dole can escape from the shadow of her husband's pathetic campaign in 1996, forever defined by the old man's tumble from a stage. However independent and strong-willed she may be, her husband's face will conjure all the wrong images in a campaign about the next century. She has her own problems, too: an eerie, Stepford-wife quality that could turn people off, and a pro-life stance that will dampen her appeal to female voters.

Dole and Bush must still make up their minds, but a host of lesser names are already committed to running. Few hold much promise. One of them is former Tennessee governor and Bush administration education secretary Lamar Alexander, a returnee from the 1996 campaign. On paper, Alexander is a strong candidate -- a skilled fundraiser who's practically been living in New Hampshire and Iowa for the past two years. But while Alexander has forsworn the red-and-black plaid shirt that earned him ridicule in '96, he hasn't gotten past lame gimmickry. He's already wielding inane new slogans -- "Mr. Gore, we don't want any more" -- and pitiably facile ideas, such as making Congress pass two-year budgets so it can spend half its time repealing old laws instead of writing new ones. What's more, although Alexander spent much of his last campaign casting himself as a moderate alternative to his rivals, he announced his candidacy last week with a shot at George W. Bush's habit of labeling himself a "compassionate conservative." "Those are weasel words," Alexander said. "I think we need to say in plain words, `I am a conservative.' " ("I am a phony" would be more like it.)

And we can't forget former vice president Dan Quayle. It's been said that Quayle is far more popular with Republican voters than with the national media, but it's hard to believe poor Danny could survive the sheer weight of the derision he'll encounter. What's more, here's a guy who would have to run an entire presidential campaign without making a single gaffe. Forget about it.

Billionaire publisher Steve Forbes, the flat-tax prophet of 1996, is also back for another try. Now Forbes has added a new emphasis on social issues such as abortion to woo the powerful religious right. That shift, and his cultivated campaign organization, will make him a potent force in the primaries, but Forbes needs to wake up to the fact that his unnerving geekiness is a disqualifier. America may be ready for a woman, but not for a space alien.

What's more, Forbes will be competing with other candidates for that bloc of far-right primary voters. Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council, a long-time voice of the radical right, is moving toward a campaign that would focus on religion and morality. Missouri senator John Ashcroft, who would have pursued a similar audience, stopped short of running last week. But New Hampshire's own Senator Bob Smith, who once took to the Senate floor with a plastic fetus and toy scissors to demonstrate the evils of "partial-birth" abortion, did throw his hat in days before. (Smith is expected to be entertaining but politically insignificant in his home-state primary.)

Though not as awe-inspiring as a George Bush or a Liddy Dole, perhaps the most formidable candidate of the entire bunch is Arizona's John McCain. McCain is a Vietnam veteran with a reputation for bravery in both war and politics. He's built a reputation for bipartisanship through his leadership on good-guy issues like campaign-finance reform and tobacco, and he's stood out for spotlighting budget pork. McCain, too, has personal issues to worry about. His first marriage was wrecked by his flair for carousing. And he's known for the kind of thermonuclear temper that can cause big problems on the campaign trail. Some Republicans also question whether McCain has the campaign experience and fundraising touch to go all the way. For now McCain is moving in the shadows of the Bush and Dole names; but he may yet emerge as his party's savior.

Other ambitious Republicans are still thinking about running, including Ohio congressman John Kasich, a boyish aw-shucks Midwesterner with a populist streak. The ever-present Pat Buchanan is apparently still measuring the market for his brand of class rage. And Steve Duprey of the New Hampshire GOP insists that New York's Rudy Giuliani -- who visited the state twice last year to "enthusiastic receptions" -- is still a possibility (although the New York media seem more doubtful). But time is running out for the Kasichs, the Giulianis -- and even the Bushes -- of the Republican party to make a decision. A successful primary campaign could cost more than $20 million dollars, and most of that money needs to be raised this year. So expect the field to be settled within just a few more weeks. And then wish the Republicans luck. They'll need it.

Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com.