IMAGINE starting the 21st century with a president whose two top foreign-policy advisers are both black.
Now imagine that president is a Republican – George W. Bush.
It’s widely believed that if Bush wins the White House, he’ll make history by tapping Colin Powell as his secretary of state and Condoleeza Rice as national security adviser.
Over the past few weeks, Bush has taken giant steps toward banishing his image as the Frat Boy with The Smirk – in fair measure thanks to foreign-policy ideas for which Rice and Powell are key advisers.
Powell is a national hero and Rice is a foreign-policy star – she’s a former provost of Stanford University and was chief Soviet-affairs adviser to Bush’s presidential dad on his National Security Council.
By contrast, Democrat Al Gore would likely pick two white men for those posts – his old pal U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke for the State Department and longtime aide Leon Fuerth at the National Security Council.
Will it matter to voters? Hard to tell, but it’s a good bet both Powell and Rice will have prominent roles at the GOP convention.
Gore’s support among overwhelmingly Democratic African-Americans is softer than President Clinton’s. And analysts say women and swing independents are reassured by candidates who seem inclusive about their staffs.
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Worth noting: It’s a well-established fact that most reporters vote Democratic. So one of the most intriguing side points of the 2000 campaign is that the political press corps now seems to be tilted toward Bush.
Stories by reporters traveling with Republican Bush these days tend to be a lot more favorable, highlighting his folksy personality, while the Gore press corps has hit the veep pretty hard by highlighting his negative, attack-a-day strategy.
Part of that, surely, is because Bush is far more accessible, with press conferences almost every day, and he’s outlining some serious policy issues while Gore (like his Clinton Legacy Mate Hillary Clinton) tends to hide from press queries.
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The question of who gets picked by Gore and Bush for top Cabinet posts – and whether they’ll pick folks like Powell – could become more high-profile in the 2000 campaign if, as now seems likely, both choose white males for veep.
The Republican right wing is sending up red flags over pro-choice Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge – though a lot of GOP insiders insist he’s the guy Bush feels most comfortable with.
But some GOPers are floating the name of Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a telegenic former FBI agent who is also close to Bush and handled the Oklahoma City tragedy impressively. And he’s right-to-life on abortion.
Of course, a Texas-Oklahoma ticket could look a bit weird – but that’s what they said about the Clinton-Gore combo of Arkansas-Tennessee in 1992.
On the Democratic side, California Gov. Gray Davis keeps getting cited more and more as Gore’s veep as polls show a tightening (5 points or less) Gore lead in the Golden State, a must-win state for him.
Also talked-up on the Democratic side: Florida Sen. Bob Graham (though a lot less since Gore’s pandering about Elian), North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin.
Some talk up California Sen. Dianne Feinstein but, truth is, she’s not a team player, her husband has China business deals that could spark questions and, anyway, Gore’s biggest problem is with male voters, not women.
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The conventional wisdom said Bush had better worry about third-party candidates like Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump (remember that goofy gambit?) siphoning off his vote. Now it seems Gore is the guy with the worries – about Ralph Nader.
In California, Washington and Oregon – three Left Coast states where Gore needs to be comfortably ahead but isn’t – Nader is a problem for him. And in auto-making states like Michigan and Ohio, the United Auto Workers are grousing that maybe they’ll back Nader.