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Along time ago on the political clock—October 1986—the Republicans’ line-up of presidential candidates for 1988 featured a clear front-runner followed by a pack of distant seconds and also-rans. Vice President George Bush, riding high on name recognition and Reagan association, led by a wide margin. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole was the closest of the distant seconds, with the potential to move. The rest of the contenders—Howard Baker, Jack Kemp, Pat Robertson, Paul Laxalt, and long shots like A1 Haig and former Delaware governor Pete du Pont—had only fragile hopes of staging a Carteresque coup in the early primaries. Barring an unexpected turn of events, Washington pols were expecting that the interesting race would be among the Democrats. Clearly, front-runner Bush would be the Republican nominee.

On November 4, 1986, the unexpected turn of events took place. First, the Democrats regained control of the Senate, flattening George Bush into every-man-for-himself status and Bob Dole into a much less prominent Leader of the Minority. On that same day, the Iran story broke, and the repercussions have been battering Republicans ever since. The Vice President’s close ties to Reagan, once his strength, almost overnight became a semi-liability; yet, as Mr. Bush correctly noted in New Hampshire, any attempt to distance himself from Reagan would be futile. How serious is Irangate for Bush? “This is Bush’s biggest challenge,” a Kemp aide observes. “He’s put himself in the same Catch-22 situation as Don Regan by saying, on the one hand, that he’s a key figure in the Reagan Administration and then, on the other, that he doesn’t know anything about the most egregious White House deal in the last six years.”

JM

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John McLaughlin

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Presidential Election

Iran

White House

Along time ago on the political clock—October 1986—the Republicans’ line-up of presidential candidates for 1988 featured a clear front-runner followed by a pack of distant seconds and also-rans. Vice President George Bush, riding high on name recognition and Reagan association, led by a wide margin. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole was the closest of the distant seconds, with the potential to move. The rest of the contenders—Howard Baker, Jack Kemp, Pat Robertson, Paul Laxalt, and long shots like A1 Haig and former Delaware governor Pete du Pont—had only fragile hopes of staging a Carteresque coup in the early primaries. Barring an unexpected turn of events, Washington pols were expecting that the interesting race would be among the Democrats. Clearly, front-runner Bush would be the Republican nominee.

On November 4, 1986, the unexpected turn of events took place. First, the Democrats regained control of the Senate, flattening George Bush into every-man-for-himself status and Bob Dole into a much less prominent Leader of the Minority. On that same day, the Iran story broke, and the repercussions have been battering Republicans ever since. The Vice President’s close ties to Reagan, once his strength, almost overnight became a semi-liability; yet, as Mr. Bush correctly noted in New Hampshire, any attempt to distance himself from Reagan would be futile. How serious is Irangate for Bush? “This is Bush’s biggest challenge,” a Kemp aide observes. “He’s put himself in the same Catch-22 situation as Don Regan by saying, on the one hand, that he’s a key figure in the Reagan Administration and then, on the other, that he doesn’t know anything about the most egregious White House deal in the last six years.”