Forbes ASAP

AS a breed, the once and future presidential candidate does not, in general, place his own phone calls. Steve Forbes still does. I took a message from him last year for a colleague: “Can you please tell her that Steve Forbes returned her call? F-O-R-B-E-S.” Forbes’s charm when he entered national politics in 1995 was that he was unassuming and unfailingly polite, that he was endearingly awkward—that, in short, he was not a politician. He went over well with crowds, but nobody gave him a chance to wrest the Republican presidential nomination from Bob Dole.

Forbes didn’t beat Dole, but he did impress the skeptics by winning the Arizona and Delaware primaries. And by campaigning for Republicans in the fall, he proved his candidacy had been no lark. He’s been preparing non-stop for the 2000 race ever since. Indeed, after only three years, Forbes has staked a plausible claim to being the leader of the Right. Nobody has a better claim: not Newt Gingrich or Trent Lott; not Rush Limbaugh, who loomed larger before Republicans took Congress; not Jack Kemp, who has become a Harold Stassen who doesn’t run; and not Bill Bennett, now seen more as a cultural figure than a political one. Forbes has sought the support of conservatives by building their movement. Presidential aspirants routinely campaign for their party’s candidates, as Forbes did for 97 of them in this election cycle. But Forbes also set up a “message tank,” called “Americans for Hope, Growth, and Opportunity,” which campaigns for issues. In 1997, AHGO, a self-funded organization with 140,000 dues-paying members, ran ads in Iowa to help get tax cuts passed. In 1997, Forbes drew criticism from some conservatives for campaigning for the re-election of his childhood friend, New Jersey Gov.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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AS a breed, the once and future presidential candidate does not, in general, place his own phone calls. Steve Forbes still does. I took a message from him last year for a colleague: “Can you please tell her that Steve Forbes returned her call? F-O-R-B-E-S.” Forbes’s charm when he entered national politics in 1995 was that he was unassuming and unfailingly polite, that he was endearingly awkward—that, in short, he was not a politician. He went over well with crowds, but nobody gave him a chance to wrest the Republican presidential nomination from Bob Dole.

Forbes didn’t beat Dole, but he did impress the skeptics by winning the Arizona and Delaware primaries. And by campaigning for Republicans in the fall, he proved his candidacy had been no lark. He’s been preparing non-stop for the 2000 race ever since. Indeed, after only three years, Forbes has staked a plausible claim to being the leader of the Right. Nobody has a better claim: not Newt Gingrich or Trent Lott; not Rush Limbaugh, who loomed larger before Republicans took Congress; not Jack Kemp, who has become a Harold Stassen who doesn’t run; and not Bill Bennett, now seen more as a cultural figure than a political one. Forbes has sought the support of conservatives by building their movement. Presidential aspirants routinely campaign for their party’s candidates, as Forbes did for 97 of them in this election cycle. But Forbes also set up a “message tank,” called “Americans for Hope, Growth, and Opportunity,” which campaigns for issues. In 1997, AHGO, a self-funded organization with 140,000 dues-paying members, ran ads in Iowa to help get tax cuts passed. In 1997, Forbes drew criticism from some conservatives for campaigning for the re-election of his childhood friend, New Jersey Gov.