EDITORIAL — Shifting political ground

If the pundits are right about the outcome of this year’s presidential election in the U.S., Robert Dole will lead his Grand Old Party to defeat.

Americans respect the man’s character, values and love of country; he is the right man for the job, they seem to be saying, but not the right man for the times. Already, pessimists and realists in the Republican party are looking for their man of the next century; someone capable of defeating Democratic President Bill Clinton’s likely successor in election year 2000 — Vice-President Al Gore.

The name that comes up most often is that of a man who, though trained as a geologist, went on to make his name in another career. It is widely believed that if Colin Powell were to run for office in the year 2000, he could win the Republican nomination and defeat any Democratic Party opponent, including Gore.

But the pundits also point out that in order for this to happen, the Republican Party, as we now know it, will have to be redefined, revitalized and reborn. It will have to abandon its right-wing extremists; its bigots, misogynists and racists; its mean-spirited “us-versus-them” rhetoric; its outdated economic policies; its wishy-washiness on the separation of church and state; and its lack of vision for the future.

So far, pride has staved off the need to soul-search and examine the legacies of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, or to understand how the party apparatus spawned the cast of shadey characters involved in Watergate, Iran-Contragate and the Savings and Loan fiasco. It has been easier to look for dirt in the opposing camp. It may take another election defeat before Republicans understand that Americans will not feel at home in their party until the party is at home in America.

Bob Dole deserves credit for helping steer the party away from the divisive social and religious issues that derailed George Bush’s attempts to gain a second term of office. But Dole’s attempts to secure the middle ground have hit a snag. This territory has already been staked by Bill Clinton and his of middle-of-the-road Democrats.

In Canada, a similar problem is faced by the Reform Party. Prime Minister Jean Chretien has shifted Liberal party ideology so far to the centre of the political spectrum that the far left is complaining that the Liberals are stauncher fiscal conservatives than Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives ever were. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton is getting marks in the U.S.

for reducing the deficit, reforming the welfare system and taking a tough stand on crime — issues that were once the domain of the right.

The Republicans, in contrast, send out mixed signals. On the one hand, they talk about reducing the intrusiveness of government. On the other, they espouse social policies that advocate government interference in matters most people view as private. And does anyone really believe that is possible to balance budgets and offer huge tax cuts at the same time?

All this does not mean that the right has nothing to offer voters. Au contraire; the right has been right about the principles of less government, balanced budgets, property rights, law and order, welfare reform and self-reliance. The problem is that those ideas are now part of the middle-of-the-road political spectrum and will become increasingly so in the years ahead. What voters appear to be saying is that governments should concentrate on economic matters and leave them free to define their own family and religious values.