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TEXAS. Again a personality clash between two conservative candidates. "I think the race is getting to be more fun all the time," says William Clements, the multimillionaire oil-drilling contractor who is running for Governor. Clements' idea of fun is to skewer his Democratic opponent, Texas Attorney General John Hill, whom he derides as a "claims lawyer and a career politician." When Hill accused Clements of resorting to "Nixon-style Watergate tricks," the Republican replied: "Hill seems a little sensitive to me." The main campaign issue is how to spend the state's $3 billion surplus; no matter which candidate wins, the taxpayers are sure to get some relief.
The Republicans are bewildered and outraged by the way the Democrats have appropriated the traditional G.O.P. issue of fiscal prudence. "There's a law against shoplifting," says Michigan Congressman Elford Cederberg. "We ought to have a law against issue-lifting." Adds Mike Thompson, head of the Florida Conservative Union: "Republicans must be sharp enough to point out that the Democrats are stealing our issue. If we let them get away with it, we have no one to blame but ourselves. The theft of an issue becomes an issue."
Or does it? Most Americans do not seem to care who lowers their taxes and reduces spending as long as somebody does it. Beyond that, the Republican Party is still perceived as the organ of big business that is most at home in a country-club setting. Surveys show that a majority of the public believes the Democrats, who ran up the spending in the first place, are best equipped to bring it down again. In good times and bad, they are expected to look after the common man.
In an effort to change the G.O.P. image and arouse voter excitement, many Republicans have been trying a different tactic this campaign. They have been championing the Kemp-Roth bill, which calls for a 33% federal income tax cut over a three-year period. The measure is based on the theory of Economist Arthur
Laffer, who argues that a tax reduction would stimulate business activity, which in turn would generate new tax revenues to make up for the lower tax rates. Republicans have thus been able to urge tax cuts without having to say what programs should be cutâimplying that there is a delectably free lunch after all. But it has not been an easy message to sell to an electorate skeptical of political promises. For many conservatives, it is too extreme a departure from traditional doctrine.
Trying to drum up support for Kemp-Roth, a group of Republican leaders, including New York Congressman Jack Kemp, toured the country for three days last month in what they called a "tax blitz." At the cost of $150,000 for the trip, the Republicans figured they got $2.5 million in free publicity. But their live audiences were hardly worth the effort. In