Issue 1 is Bill Bradley’s increasingly competitive race with Al Gore. Issue 2 is Pat Buchanan’s likely jump to the Reform Party.
Grilled by Sam, Cokie, and George on ABC’s This Week, Bill Bradley appears relaxed and confident. He admits to using marijuana but not cocaine, then asks his interrogators the same question (Donaldson says he has used marijuana, Roberts says neither drug, and Will–can you guess?–also says neither). Bradley says he supports limited experiments with vouchers, but in general opposes them. (To read Slate’s take on Bradley’s tightrope walk on vouchers, click here.) Bradley says Clinton was wrong to grant clemency to Puerto Rican criminals, and he argues that the apparent success of Clinton’s welfare reform is due largely to the strong economy.
Most programs flash polls showing Bradley even with Gore in New Hampshire and New York. Many conservative pundits think Gore is finished. Skeptics (such as Sam Donaldson and Fox News Sunday’s Mara Liasson and Brit Hume) note that Gore–like Bob Dole in ‘96 and Walter Mondale in ‘84–still has the party establishment behind him and a sizable national lead.
Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Pat Buchanan says nothing new but sounds more bitter than ever. (“They gave my speaking spot [at the ‘96 GOP Convention] to Christine Todd Whitman,” he mutters.) Most pundits think his jump to the Reform Pary is certain. Several panelists–including Bill Kristol (This Week), Gloria Borger (Face the Nation and PBS’s Washington Week in Review), Alan Murray (Washington Week), and Jack Germond (NBC’s Meet the Press)–think the GOP should show Buchanan the door.
Others think there is ample reason for the Republicans to be “quaking in their wingtips” (PBS’s John McLaughlin): He’ll steal votes from George W. Bush. (“That giant sucking sound you hear is the sound of the Republican Party sucking up to Buchanan,” quips McLaughlin’s Eleanor Clift.) On Meet the Press, GOP National Chairman Jim Nicholson looks humbled and frightened. When Tim Russert asks him whether his upcoming meeting with Buchanan will be at Buchanan’s office or his own, he stutters and then refuses to answer. Some skeptics note that Buchanan’s support is tepid to begin with, and that he may actually draw labor votes from the Democratic nominee (Alan Murray, Fox’s Juan Williams, CNN Late Edition’s Steve Roberts, and McLaughlin’s Tony Blankley and Michael Barone). Most shows note that both Gov. Jesse Ventura, I-Minn., and Donald Trump have threatened to run for the Reform Party nomination to block Buchanan. (Indeed, Trump attacked Buchanan’s isolationism in a fax sent to several shows Sunday morning.) (To read Slate’s take on Pat’s apostasy, click here.)
Predicting (Another) Pat’s Path
On This Week, Bill Kristol predicts that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., will endorse Bill Bradley this week. It should be noted that Kristol’s record on Moynihan intelligence is not good: In January 1998 Sam Donaldson asked Kristol what would happen next in the then-exploding Flytrap scandal. Kristol predicted that Democratic leaders, principally Pat Moynihan, would “go to the president–and I agree with Sam; it could be in days, not in weeks–and tell him this is insupportable, you cannot put the country through this.” Of course, Moynihan never did this. However, Bill Bradley did seem to be fishing for his endorsement on This Week: When asked about welfare reform, he began, “I agreed with Pat Moynihan on this issue, who I think knows more about welfare than anybody else in the country.” When asked about Clinton’s clemency, he noted that he “agreed with Senator Moynihan.”
“Thanks, Louis. Love and Kisses, Orrin.”
Senator Orrin Hatch’s love affair with Clinton FBI Director Louis Freeh continues. (See the Sept. 6 Pundit Central.) On Fox, Hatch, R-Utah, informs us that Freeh “is a very honest guy–and frankly he’s the best FBI director I’ve seen in my whole 23 years in the Senate. He’s an honest, decent man. He gets in trouble with this administration because he is honest and doesn’t play the [political] game.” Earlier in the program, Fox aired a leaked FBI surveillance video allegedly depicting two Puerto Rican criminals–recently sprung by Clinton–making a mail bomb.
Last Word
From an exchange on Fox:
Tony Snow: “You mean if somebody found a bunch of KKK members, [and] they had a surveillance videotape [of the members making bombs, but] they weren’t directly linked to the bombing [in court], that it wouldn’t be justified to draw a conclusion from that?”
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.: “I would say that if you had members of the KKK, that were not directly tied to the murder–that they did not do the murder–that 90 years [in jail] would be excessive. You know it, and I know it.”
