Already Jockeying for Position

By James Kelly.

Wait a minute. Isn't this 1985, a good three years before the next Republican presidential convention? Yes, but some politicians believe that it is never too early to slap a back in pursuit of a dream. So there was George Bush, just back from an eleven-day official trip to Europe, ensconced in a reviewing stand in Bristol, N.H., in the state that just happens to hold the country's first presidential primary. Congressman Jack Kemp skipped the family barbecue in upstate New York to be in Iowa, traditionally the site of the nation's first party caucuses. After marching in a procession in the town of Clear Lake that included a troop of fez-wearing Shriners on motorcycles, Kemp was approached by a woman who pleaded, "Let me shake your hand, just in case you're President some day."

Besides Bush and Kemp, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole is expected to enter the race. Other possible hopefuls include Howard Baker (who held Dole's job before retiring last year), former Delaware Governor Pierre du Pont IV and even the freshly converted Jeane Kirkpatrick, recently retired Ambassador to the U.N. Yet Bush and Kemp so far best symbolize the struggle for the mantle of Reaganism, the battle between the mainstream of the party establishment and the activists of the New Right. Some Republican strategists even believe that the race will turn into a "cultural civil war," pitting the blue-blooded Bush, 61, a preppie Yalie, against the red-blooded Kemp, 49, the onetime Buffalo Bills quarterback with the gravelly voice.

Asked if his Iowa sojourn had anything to do with 1988, Kemp replied, "Absolutely." Bush is more coy. "I don't seriously have to address that problem until after the 1986 elections," he said last week. Yet the nomination clock is ticking earlier than ever. Michigan, for example, may begin the arduous process of choosing the people who will select its delegates to the 1988 Republican Convention as soon as August 1986.

Both men have formed political action committees to funnel money to local candidates and thus collect political chits. Kemp has been on the road at least two days a week for the past three years. As a fervent preacher of conservative values and supply-side tax cuts, Kemp believes his appeal within his party's right wing is strong enough to allow him to broaden his base. Instead of simply sounding the Reaganite creed of self-reliance, Kemp stresses that government has a role in caring for the needy. Kemp's neopopulist rhetoric sometimes sounds as if it were lifted from a Jesse Jackson sermon. At a party conference in Grand Rapids last month, for example, Kemp complained, "It's pretty tough to pull yourself up by the bootstraps when you have no boots to begin with."

Kemp's strategy also calls for tapping into a dedicated cadre of conservative youths. Polls show that today's young voters are further to the right than their counterparts ten years ago and thus more receptive to Kemp's paeans to economic growth and an "opportunity" society. Nonetheless, Kemp's speeches tend to be either snoozers about monetary policy or rah-rah pep talks that leave skeptics wondering about his ability to grapple with complex issues. ("How smart is Ronald Reagan?" counters John Buckley, Kemp's press secretary.)

Experience is not George Bush's problem. A sort of "Mr. Resume," Bush served as Congressman, CIA director and Ambassador to the U.N., among other jobs, before becoming Vice President. His loyalty to Reagan, which he displayed so exuberantly in 1984 as if to atone for having challenged him in the 1980 primaries, has earned Bush the respect of many True Believers. He has also accumulated a ballot box of IOUs from local candidates he has helped over the past five years.

The vice presidency has afforded Bush high visibility and a sterling showcase to display his considerable knowledge of foreign policy. Yet Bush, as Vice President, faces an occupational hazard: by echoing his boss's policies so faithfully, he risks looking like a Reagan clone, the perfect No. 2 man with no views of his own. Dole, whose duties in the Senate have kept him largely off the campaign trail so far, has already delivered a stinging jab. Bush, said Dole, has been trying to emulate Reagan's macho image by visiting the President's ranch to "chop horses and ride wood."

Kemp's strategists hope to make Bush look like a Republican Walter Mondale: the front runner with no burning message who seeks to sew up the nomination before the first primary, only to be thrown off balance by an attractive newcomer. Unlike Gary Hart, Kemp expects to go all the way. "There is the whole issue of who can discuss the future without falling into the Gary Hart trap, where there is nothing much to chomp down on," says Kemp, who is convinced that there is more beef to his own message.

In American politics, where a week is a long time and three years an eternity, both Bush and Kemp could easily get derailed by other competitors. No doubt there will be twists and turns, different faces and fleeting fancies, even before the campaign formally begins. Yet the themes Bush and Kemp have sounded are likely to reverberate over the next three years in the struggle for the rightful inheritance of the Reagan legacy.

With reporting by Sam Allis and Barrett Seaman/ Washington