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There remains, to be sure, a certain implausibility about Simon as the eventual nominee. Image is part of the problem; unfashionable bow ties and horn-rims can captivate a limited number of anti-chic contrarians, but they can make a candidate seem quirky to others. So is ideology; Simon's dovish rhetoric seems unlikely to play well in the South, even though Iowa voters respond to applause lines like "I think the choice is the arms race or the human race." Simon may confound liberal orthodoxy by his support of a balanced-budget amendment, but the centerpiece of his domestic agenda remains an almost nostalgic $8 billion public jobs program, modeled after Franklin Roosevelt's WPA. There is a lingering suspicion that Democratic voters are just flirting with Simon before they pledge their troth to a more conventionally marriageable candidate. As a top strategist to a Democratic rival puts it, "There is a distinct limit to how much his support can grow."
Indeed, the basis for Simon's current appeal is the very thing that could % prove his undoing: his frequent claims that "more than any other candidate I have demonstrated that I am willing to do what's unpopular." His sartorial and ideological independence, along with his fealty to the old-time Democratic religion, can do little more than grant him his 15 minutes of celebrity. To become President, he must make sure that these go-it-alone traits do not begin to seem like studied eccentricity, wearisome piety and philosophical quaintness.