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The fact that the same Republican voters who stampeded to Reagan's banner of radical reform now embrace Bush as the rightful heir speaks loudly about the complacent state of the Grand Old Party. Says Ed Rollins, an alumnus of the Reagan White House who chaired Kemp's campaign: "The kinds of conservatives who were Reagan rebels in 1976 and 1980 have become comfortable with being part of the Establishment. Bush has done a good job persuading these people that he'll protect the Reagan agenda and that they can trust him."
The contradiction in that perception is that the Reagan agenda was dynamic, not static. At its most expansive, when Reagan was still burning at full power, it reached beyond the confines of the traditional Republican minority. Kemp, far more than Bush, attempted to preach a sermon of inclusion aimed at blacks, Hispanics, blue-collar families and other blocs normally considered Democratic property. Partly because of his own failings as a candidate, partly & because he never untangled his jumbled economic theories into a clear line, Kemp was unable to stretch Reagan's populist-tinted conservatism into the future.
Televangelist Robertson reached in another direction, toward alienated social conservatives who yearn for a counterrevolution against "secular humanism." His minions had enough zeal and savvy to take over local party cells in some regions where flaccid G.O.P. regulars slept. But Robertson proved to be so reckless and ineffective a campaigner that his message was never tested amid a blizzard of controversy. Among registered Republicans surveyed last week by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 58% had a generally unfavorable impression of Robertson.
Dole tried his own version of a broad appeal. Unlike Kemp and Robertson, he has the stature and maturity to be credible. But he based his claim on his personal conviction, bordering on obsession, that he is better equipped to run the country. His constant attempt to depict himself as the man of steel tempered in adversity, in contrast to Bush as an empty Brooks Bros. suit, was a promising beginning. But there was no ending, no compelling message extending beyond Dole's own considerable grit and intelligence.
In this atmosphere, it was relatively easy for Bush to exploit the royalist genes that linger in the Republican bloodstream despite the transfusion of Reaganism. None of his rivals could make a convincing case that the normal line of succession should be suspended in 1988. On Tuesday night one of Dole's Democratic friends, Party Elder Bob Strauss, was visibly saddened by the G.O.P. election returns. Then he brightened and observed, "The Democratic Party may be better off with this result." However, such doubts about Bush's ability to defend the Reagan palace, either in November or in the White House, were invisible among Republican voters on Super Tuesday.