The day after quitting the presidential campaign, Richard Lugar was studying exit polls from the Vermont primary.
Vermont.
And he was dead sober too.
“These just came in,” the Indiana senator told me Thursday afternoon as he offered analysis about that merry band of 14 percent that backed him in Tuesday’s Vermont primary.
“They indicate clearly that 48 percent of those who voted for me, voted for Clinton in 1992 and 18 percent voted for Perot. Only 30 percent came from those who voted for Bush.”
His suggestion was obvious, namely that in a state where he had spent a lot of time, he had shown a sharp increase in support in the final week of his campaign. And he felt the polling indicated his potential to lure exactly the sort of voters a Republican may need to win the White House.
Lugar got his butt kicked in the GOP presidential race. His demise was notable, even if preordained and of scant interest to a press corps that had from the start labeled him an ancillary, if honorable, figure.
In some ways, as a few stories suggested, he seemed an ideal candidate. A bright, respected, level-headed conservative with a sophisticated grasp of economic and foreign policy issues, among others. As compared to several candidates, like Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes, Bob Dornan, Alan Keyes and Morry Taylor, it wasn’t a stretch to envision him as president.
But his name recognition was modest, finances underwhelming, and the early characterization of being an also-ran never overcome. It says something about the whole process that a guy like Lugar didn’t really have a chance, even if his lack of charisma is antithetical to the personality-driven politics of the day–assuming you don’t possess gobs of cash to overcome your own languor, as do Steve Forbes and Bob Dole.
Lugar did not broach the larger question during his announcement on dropping out. Indeed, he said precious little about his campaign or the whole process, other than joking about the key matters of momentum and money.
“My momentum is suspect, and my money is gone,” he said with a smile.
That line drew laughs not associated with a Hoosier who comes off as aggressively dour when in fact he can be droll.
This is someone, I was assured last week, whose favorite movie is “Animal House,” at least according to a son who concedes being embarrassed at how hard dad laughed during one family trek to see it.
Not saying much was premeditated. Lugar wanted to take what he considered a high road and not look like a whiner. When I called the next day about having him expand on his bare-bones farewell, an aide said it was very unlikely. Rhetorical scarcity was the order of the day.
But he did agree to chat.
Those in the political know in Washington, including cadres of hot-shot journalists who have proven totally, absolutely wrong about virtually every twist of the campaign, say that Lugar’s first liability was a belated decision to even get into the fray. That is hard to dispute.
He announced last April. He had precious little organization nationwide and no heavy-hitter endorsements. It is hard to deny that while the abysmal failure of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm proves that mere money (he spent $20 million) can’t assure success, a late start when you don’t have Forbes-like bucks likely does doom one to failure.
“Gramm had said that $20 million was the starting ticket. I felt that wasn’t so. On the other hand, knowing what I know now, I would have taken much more time establishing a substantial national fundraising organization,” Lugar said.
Lugar’s campaign had a flawed premise. As he put it, “The basic assumption was that Sen. Dole would not go the route, due to health, fatigue or preoccupations with being the majority leader. His campaign would falter.”
But, he said somewhat understatedly, “That opening really never happened.”
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Then there was the surprise arrival of moneybags Forbes.
“He must have gone to school on Perot and thought that if you spend tens of millions, you can turn around a lot of points. Perot did it with an independent candidacy, which is tougher, given various state laws. Steve was perhaps smarter, going through an existing party.”
More relevant, “the sheer number of his TV ads, quite apart from their content, took oxygen out of the campaign.”
Lugar indicated that he spent $8 million. By comparison, Forbes spent an estimated $3 million alone on ads on Boston TV stations, $4 million on TV in Arizona, and $1.5 million to get his name on the New York ballot last week.
“Whatever I was going to do on TV, especially early on in Iowa and New Hampshire, was overrun by the rest. So if I didn’t approach New Hampshire with sufficient recognition, or the media hadn’t decided it was a real four- or five-man race, I had problems.”
Lugar says that his inability to convince national media of the legitimacy of his chances doomed him. For him, most everything is captured in this vignette.
“I went up to NBC in New York to visit with Jane Pauley and Tom Brokaw, who’ve been good friends. Jane came out of Indianapolis TV.
“That day USA Today had a box score with miscellaneous facts, including the number of appearances people had made on `Meet the Press.’ Dole had just been on, and he was the all-time leader. Hubert Humphrey was in the top five, as was I.
“This led me to gently indicate that though they had been most generous for 20 years, I had been on just once during 1995. It was almost as if by declaring my candidacy last April, the door had been shut to me on weekend show appearances.”
Somebody, he recalled, noted that the main reason he was invited in the past was his foreign policy expertise. ” `You were invited because the Russians were being obstreperous or Iran was running amok, big world issues. But this year people aren’t interested (in those).’ “
“What I take away from this is you simply need an accumulation of recognition so when somebody thinks that two people are equally strong, perhaps a fine article tips it. But without national media taking my candidacy more seriously, especially the televised media, that wasn’t going to happen.”
‘Nuff said
Oh, speaking of that national media, let’s start recalling some of the insightful, prescient highlights of campaign coverage so far:
“MANCHESTER, N.H., Feb. 20–With the nation listening intently, New Hampshire roared once more tonight and delivered a stentorian message that promises confusion for the Republican Party for months to come.
“This small, remote state, so difficult to please, so prone to surprise, converted Patrick J. Buchanan from a candidate of protest into a front-runner of sorts. After months of grueling work, Mr. Buchanan, Sen. Bob Dole and Lamar Alexander established themselves definitively as the prime contenders. . . .
“It was, of course, a big night for Mr. Buchanan and a grim one for Mr. Dole. For the first time, it raised the bare possibility that Mr. Buchanan might win the nomination despite the opposition of most of the party’s leaders . . .
“Although Mr. Dole suggested that only he and Mr. Buchanan remained viable contenders, it may be that Mr. Alexander, the former Secretary of Education and Governor of Tennessee, gained the most from today’s voting…” R.W. Apple Jr., New York Times, Feb. 21.
You have to agree with one thing: New Hampshire is small and remote.