Forbes, Buchanan Muddy The Waters Anti-Infighting Dole Is Electable; Tweedledum And Tweedledee Aren’t

Any of the top Republican presidential candidates is preferable to President FlipFlop.

Steve Forbes, with his intriguing flat-tax plan, understands America’s yearning for tax reform better than Bill Clinton, who arrived in office promising tax cuts and then nursed the Mother of All Tax Increases through Congress.

Pat Buchanan, despite his unsettling dark underbelly and his goofy trade-protectionist ideas, has a quiver full of attractive stands to combat Clinton’s gays-in-the-military approach to social policy.

However, neither is electable. For conservatives, it’s critical to find someone who can retire the mendacious first couple and remove the roadblock to welfare and Medicare reform and a balanced federal budget.

Worse, the GOP’s Tweedledee and Tweedledum have bruised the man who can beat Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas - to the delight of Democrats and their public relations arm, the media, who’d prefer the devil to a conservative president.

Much has been made of Dole’s poor speech following Clinton’s State of the Union address and his inability to pull away from Buchanan and Forbes in the Republican primaries. But imagine how Clinton would fare against these political attack dogs.

Buchanan would fillet Bill and Hillary - citing Whitewater, Travelgate, Paula Jones, the withholding of subpoenaed information and constant lying. Forbes would run negative ads about Clinton’s Pollyanna State of the Union speech in which he described our less-than-robust economy as rosy. Together, they’d unmask Clinton as a social radical who has lost his economic vision.

Instead, Buchanan and Forbes are driving wedges in the conservative movement.

Buchanan is a social conservative whose trade and isolationist views are so far to the left that they appeal to the AFL-CIO. His blatant appeal to the bigot vote and his negative approach to problem-solving are his other fatal weaknesses. Meanwhile, Forbes is an economic conservative whose views on abortion and gay rights make him anathema to social conservatives.

Neither has Dole’s experience in government leadership and consensus-building. Neither can stop Ol’ 43 Percent’s bid for a second term.

Clinton must love them both.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Forbes, Buchanan can teach Dole a lot

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