The Christian Science Monitor
RAN 2/14
Monitor staff
DEAR international readers: It's time for another seminar on American politics.
The US is once more passing through the early stages of a process resembling 
Wimbledon ­ but not quite. The party primaries (and caucuses) constitute a 
voter selection process to produce two finalists for a Democrat-Republican 
singles match next fall. But it is possible for losers in an early primary to 
make a comeback if they don't trail too badly in vote percentage. Bill Clinton 
was living proof of that four years ago, when he lost in Iowa and New Hampshire 
but recovered in his native South.
In Iowa this week the Republican field effectively narrowed to three 
contenders: balanced budget pragmatist Bob Dole, fortress America moralist Pat 
Buchanan, and middle-of-the-road modernizer Lamar Alexander. Flat-tax advocate 
Steve Forbes's advertising-inflated campaign deflated.
Next Tuesday the Republican contenders repeat their struggle in the New 
Hampshire primary, where the same three leaders may emerge (possibly in the 
same order) to head into the thick season of larger primaries just ahead. New 
Hampshire touts its almost perfect record of picking the eventual Republican 
winner for the fall campaign. Likely; not certain.
All right, you say. That's lots of names. But what about policies? How might 
America's course be affected?
First, a word about voodoo. In 1980, George Bush accused Ronald Reagan of 
practicing "voodoo economics." That came to mean cutting taxes to stimulate the 
economy without simultaneous budget balancing. It led to a ballooning national 
debt.
In recent weeks Steve Forbes pitched a return of "voodoo economics," while Bill 
Clinton was busy practicing "voodoo politics" ­ namely the sleight of hand of 
stealing most of the Republicans' smaller-government, balanced-budget, family-
values platform.
Although Forbes may still place in New Hampshire, it appears that voodoo 
economics is punctured, and rightly so. Republican voters would do well to 
puncture Buchanan's trade-shrinking, economy-denting isolationism. Dole, 
meanwhile, could profitably highlight ideas for economic growth, to augment his 
tough budget-balancing message.
Clinton's appropriation of Republican themes should help him mightily in the 
November vote. But if he wins and sweeps in enough big-government Democrats 
from the other wing of his party, he could find it just as hard to govern and 
keep his budget-balancing promise as it was with Republican revolutionaries 
riding high.
Neither would a Dole presidency have an easy time with an ideologically 
polarized Congress. But he, at least, is long hardened to finding his way 
through that gantlet.
(Copyright 1996, The Christian Science Publishing Society. Used by permission.)