That '70s Candidate

Jimmy Carter with helmet hair

John J. Pitney, Jr. from the June 1999 issue

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If not bureaucrats, who causes policy problems? Carter pointed to special interests, saying that otherwise good people get selfish when they undertake political action. "Schoolteachers love their students," he said, "but when they organize and hire a lobbyist to work with the legislature, those lobbyists don't care anything about the students." Of course, that fine sentiment didn't stop him from promising to set up the Department of Education in return for teacher union support.

Dole is just as consistently inconsistent. In her campaign announcement, she said government is: "paralyzed by special interests." Huh? In the Reagan White House, she headed the Office of Public Liaison, whose sole purpose was to cater to special interests. And then she headed two of the most clientele-serving Cabinet departments: Transportation and Labor. After all those experiences, plus four national campaigns at Bob Dole's side, she had the chutzpah to add, "I'm not a politician, and frankly today I think that may be a plus."

Carter portrayed his devotion to government as pragmatism, not ideology. "In the last analysis," he said in Los Angeles on August 23, 1976, "good government is not a matter of being liberal or conservative.... We want both progress and preservation." Dole plies the same murky waters. In a New Hampshire speech, she said: "Most Americans prefer solutions to sound bites"--which was her sound bite for the evening news. "This makes us naturally suspicious of what I call either/or politics: Liberal vs. conservative. Public school vs. private school. Us vs. them." Or in the immortal words of Yogi Berra: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"

The story isn't all bad. Just as Jimmy Carter helped deregulate airlines, Dole oversaw the privatization of Conrail. Moreover, she decries the high level of taxation and speaks with pride of her service as a "lieutenant in Ronald Reagan's army." So despite all the bad signs, might she be a closet free market type?

Nah. For any GOP candidate, damning taxes and blessing Reagan are obligatory gestures, more etiquette than ideology. With Dole, you have to think about the words you don't hear. Ponder her statement on education: "I regard public education as one of the glories of American democracy. Which is precisely why the number one priority of any education reform must be this: to restore our public schools to greatness." Would a real free-market Republican have omitted any mention of private or parochial schools?

At the Transportation Department, Dole's best-known accomplishment was a rule requiring that every new car have an air bag or automatic safety belt. Just imagine if she had headed the Department of Health and Human Services: All refrigerators would come with a "Liddy Light" that would flash if we got too much ice cream.

No wonder a former aide once told Fortune magazine, "She's progressive at the core." If she becomes president, we'll probably get what we got in the 1970s: a pro-government agenda clad in polyester fuzzwords.

Dole has one last similarity to Jimmy Carter: the persistence of a childhood nickname. Though she reportedly hates people to call her "Liddy," she's probably stuck with it, at least for the duration of the campaign. "Elizabeth Dole" is a bit long for buttons and bumper stickers. In light of recent costume movies, "Elizabeth" would summon up images of Cate Blanchett or Judi Dench. "Dole" would make people think of Bob, not Elizabeth. And "E.D." would not do, since the initials also stand for "erectile dysfunction." Thanks to a current public service ad campaign for Pfizer, that would also remind people of Bob.