Searching for virtue in the vice

Carroll Campbell is waiting for his phone to ring. The former two-term governor of South Carolina now heads a Washington-based insurance trade group, but he's itching to get back into politics. Problem is, he can't run for the office he has his eye on. At least, he can't appear to. Instead, Mr. Campbell has to be content with granting interviews, polishing his resumé, talking up his record. And watching that phone.

Welcome to the world of Veepstakes '96. America's first VP may have considered it "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived," but the number-two position has gained considerable cachet since the time of John Adams. With Republicans this year nominating a 72-year-old to the top of the ticket, the name just under Bob Dole's is especially important.

But there are other factors pushing up the value of the veep in 1996. First, unlike Ronald Reagan or George Bush, this year's Republican nominee doesn't hail from an important swing state with a lucrative supply of electoral votes. Then there's Mr. Dole's weak appeal with the right flank of his own party. Conservative Christians, in particular, are unhappy with Mr. Dole's recent overtures to pro-abortion Republicans and his ambiguous stance on the party platform. "For Dole, it will be critical that he recruits someone who is clearly conservative because there's so much apprehension about his commitment to conservative principles," says Dick Dingman, executive vice president of the Free Congress Foundation. "He needs a conservative anchor, otherwise many conservatives will sit this one out or support a third-party candidate."

What it all adds up to is this: Without the right nominee for vice president, Bob Dole looks like just an old-guard Republican from Kansas without either a geographic or an ideological base. "Everybody's saying about Dole, 'Couldn't we have come up with somebody better?'" notes Andrea Sheldon, director of government affairs at the Traditional Values Coalition. "Dole's got to find somebody darned special as his vice presidential nominee."

Fortunately for Dole, there are few inferiority complexes in the elite ranks of the Republican Party. GOP officeholders across the country are confident that they are "darned special" enough to fit the bill. Unfortunately for Dole, Christian political activists don't seem to agree.

In the first place, they don't like the picks of the professional pundits who've taken to handicapping the vice presidential contest. In the May 6 issue of The Weekly Standard, for instance, Washington reporter Fred Barnes named as first-tier candidates Arizona Senator John McCain, Michigan Governor John Engler, Ohio Governor George Voinovich, and former South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell. But when WORLD conducted an informal survey of a half-dozen Christian Right leaders (see sidebar, page 14), those names hardly registered a blip on the radar screen. Nor did Mr. Barnes's second tier of VP hopefuls: California attorney general Dan Lungren, Gov. Jim Edgar of Illinois, and Gov. Tommy Thompson of Michigan.

But if the Christian activists in our survey disagreed with the conventional wisdom, they also disagreed with each other. Their picks were all over the map-not good for a candidate who needs to unite the right wing of his party. Likewise, the passion level varied widely. Andrea Sheldon found something good to say about nearly all the candidates, while Phyllis Schlafly-an important counselor in the Pat Buchanan campaign-refused even to consider anyone other than Mr. Buchanan.

Finally, the survey showed why Bob Dole can't be too careful in selecting his running mate. Beverly LaHaye picked Mr. Engler as a good VP because of "his strong stand on moral and family values." But others question the Michigan governor on the very same grounds, pointing out that his former wife, Colleen, suggested in divorce papers that Engler had been unfaithful during their marriage. Any candidate with moral skeletons in his closet would almost certainly alienate the very people Mr. Dole most needs to appeal to.

Mr. Dole's people will do their best to make sure that doesn't happen this time around. Having been through the process before (he was scouted by the Bush camp in 1988), Carroll Campbell knows what to expect from the search process. "Basically you deliver all your tax returns and they go through that. They look through your voting records if you have been a public official. They do FBI checks. They ask you in a very extensive questionnaire a whole list of questions. They will try to find compatibility and also someone who has the skills to campaign or can help deliver certain areas. It's a pretty intensive search."

Mr. Campbell also told WORLD that contrary to the conventional wisdom in the media, the VP selection is not at the top of Mr. Dole's agenda three months before the convention. "They're not talking about that now. They're going to wait for a while, I'm sure." In fact, the former governor hasn't even received the standard questionnaire yet, although he has been assured that he's a top contender.

Jim Pitts, Dan Quayle's former political director who is now deputy publisher of the Standard, admits Mr. Dole has a formidable task in trying to unite the right. "Dole has to make them feel comfortable that his vice president is good on their issues-family tax credits, school choice, and right-to-life, especially."

But at the same time, Mr. Pitts says, Mr. Dole cannot appear to thumb his nose at Republicans who are liberal on the social issues. That may have been the motivation behind Mr. Dole's appointment of New Jersey's pro-abortion governor, Christine Todd Whitman, to a highly visible (though largely ornamental) position in his campaign. Along with fellow governors William Weld of Massachusetts, George Pataki of New York, and Pete Wilson of California, Ms. Whitman is urging a floor fight at the convention to strip the Republican platform of language calling for a pro-life amendment to the Constitution.

Though Ms. Whitman's appointment enraged many conservative activists, Mr. Pitts sees it as a relatively harmless stake in the nailing down of the big tent. "This is mostly an issue created by the press," he insists. In the end, the platform will reflect the position of the candidate. If the nominee wants a strongly pro-life platform, Christie Whitman is not going to change the language."

Even with the pro-life language retained in the platform, Ms. Whitman's highly visible role at the convention will make it all the more important for Mr. Dole to send a strong signal with his VP selection. With the stakes so high this year, vice-presidential hopefuls are tripping all over themselves-and tripping up the competition-in an effort to make their case to their party's leader.

An aide to Ohio's GOP governor recently distributed 1,500 copies of a 12-minute videotape titled "Governor George Voinovich-Working Harder, Working Smarter." The tape went to virtually every important Republican in the country, including Bob Dole himself. Not to be outdone, Mr. Voinovich's neighbor to the north, Michigan's John Engler, quickly got into the campaign spirit with a slick brochure, frequent jaunts to Washington, and innumerable press releases and TV appearances. Although he doesn't actually use the V-word, Mr. Engler repeatedly touts his gubernatorial record and aligns himself with Bob Dole's latest pronouncements.

Bob McAllister, former chief of staff to Gov. Campbell, thinks such campaigning is only hurting the chances of the VP wannabees. "That is political suicide, because the stakes are too high for the presidential nominee to be bombarded by people lobbying for a particular position. Bob Dole is a very experienced man, a very good judge of character. People ought to leave him alone and let him make his own decision."

Jim Pitts, acknowledging "to Campbell's credit, he has not campaigned behind the scenes," still sees the more aggressive campaign for the number-two slot as somewhat inevitable. "Engler and the others don't have a whole lot of choice-they need a little help. Campbell doesn't have to do much to endear himself to Bob Dole; he helped save the Dole nomination in the South Carolina primary. On the other hand, making a video won't hurt anyone's chances. It doesn't hurt a candidate to get a little buzz out there, especially if they don't have chits to cash in for campaign work. These guys don't want to wake up and think, 'Gosh, I could've been VP if I'd just done this or that.'"

Gov. Campbell, who insists he's keeping his day job, nevertheless believes that his conservative credentials and his strong support for Mr. Dole make him a strong possibility. "I have seen a lot of [other candidates] that have put out tapes, they've got brochures, and everything else. I'm not doing anything. I don't think it's appropriate. Anybody that looked at me for anything would just have to look and see my record. I believe in this country, I believe in personal responsibility, and I believe in family responsibility. I believe that this country was founded on strong religious values and that we cannot destroy them or we are going to destroy the country. These are my foundational beliefs and I'm certainly not going to change them for anybody."

Such a traditional, gentlemanly campaign for the VP slot seems almost old-fashioned in the rough-and-tumble political environment of 1996. The Standard's Fred Barnes is so struck with the negative tone of the VP contest that he's called it a "dirty, bloody battle." A Voinovich operative, for instance, said Bob Dole and John Engler on the same ticket would project an image of "two thugs." Jim Edgar of Illinois told The New York Times that he didn't understand how Mr. Engler could spend such "an inordinate time" in Washington campaigning for the vice presidency and still carry out his duties as governor. An Engler staffer, meanwhile, points out that his man's critics are united by their common history of raising taxes.

The Christian activists WORLD spoke with echoed the criticisms voiced by the candidates themselves. Ms. Sheldon, for instance, criticizes Mr. Voinovich's education policies ("Voinovich would be hurt by Christian grass-roots activists because of his support of Goals 2000") and Mr. McCain's personality ("He has the military background, but I don't think he really energizes anybody").

Poor Bob Dole. As a seasoned politician he can't help but know how divisive his veep-pick will be, not only between conservatives and moderates, but even between various factions of conservatives. None of the leading candidates seems to bring the unity on the right that he so desperately needs, while Pat Buchanan in the number-two spot looks about as likely as Chelsea Clinton in public school.

But while Mr. Dole scours the nation for the perfect veep, he may be overlooking a prime candidate right next door. The single most mentioned name in WORLD's survey was something of a surprise: Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri. Perhaps because of his proximity to Mr. Dole's own Kansas base, Mr. Ashcroft rarely makes anybody's list of serious candidates. But in terms of energizing the right without alienating the left, a Kansas-Missouri ticket might make more sense than the map would indicate.

"John's vision is upbeat and positive, and I think that's the right vision," says U.S. Rep. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), who led Republicans in the Missouri House during Mr. Ashcroft's tenure as governor. "He'll talk about people meeting their maximum God-given potential. It's not a bitter-edged vision, which I think we've had too much of. He can actually mobilize the conservative wing of the party, not just get their acquiescence. John has an outstanding record on social and family issues. Moreover, he really has a heart for those issues; it isn't just a case of somebody making a political decision. But at the same time, he's not going to alienate or scare off the more moderate Republicans. He's a proven vote-getter all across the spectrum. He's run very well with more moderate Republicans here in Missouri, so that he's been elected the last five times he's run for statewide office."

At this point, Sen. Ashcroft is the darkest of dark horses. He'll know he's a serious contender for the number-two spot when Engler, Voinovich, and company start trashing him. In the end, like Carroll Campbell, all he can do is watch his phone. And whichever phone finally rings with that all-important call, Bob Dole can only hope that his nominee rings a bell with conservative Christians. Anything else would be a very costly wrong number.