A Kind And Gentle Panderer, Anyone?

I have a notion about 2000. It is shaping up to be a thoroughly unmillennial contest between androids and mavericks, or droids and ricks.

On one side, a bunch of Chinese terra cotta soldiers at attention in dark suits and red ties: Al Gore, Bill Bradley, Lamar Alexander, John Kerry, Elizabeth Dole, Dan Quayle, Jack Kemp (a chatty droid), Dick Gephardt (a droid who thinks he’s a maverick), Steve Forbes (a droid who is the son of a maverick) and George W. Bush (a droid who is the son of a droid).

On the other side, careening about zanily: John McCain and Bob Kerrey (war heroes who spin to the beat of a different drum), Paul Wellstone, Rudolph Giuliani (a maverick with the appearance of a droid), Newt Gingrich (a has-been maverick), Pat Buchanan (a maverick with an inhuman face) and John Kasich (if wearing a Tweety Bird tie, can put you out there on the fringe).

I called McCain to inquire into his maverickism but he had flown to Fiji for a long holiday. Christmas in Fiji? Why can’t he be like President Clinton and do a poll to find the most advantageous place to vacation to woo swing voters? Why can’t he be like Bob Dole and vacation in New Hampshire?

Unlike droids, mavericks are not afraid of reporters. They come across as real people, sometimes excessively real. After a reporter called the unpredictable Bob Kerrey “Senator Pluto,” he phoned the reporter and laughingly identified himself as “the senator from Pluto.”

Gore has a charming side but he is so paralyzed by the fear of slipping up and dropping the prize he has waited for so patiently, it’s harder and harder for him to loosen up and let fly. I hear tell he has entertained reporters on flights by balancing baseball bats and spoons on his nose. Now he has become the Prince of the Droids.

We say we want someone funny and spontaneous who speaks his mind, takes bold stands and makes tough choices. But those sorts of pols are often unelectable - because they make the party pros angry, seem too flaky or because they ask the voters to eat their peas.

Everyone agrees that the campaign finance system is disgraceful and needs to be fixed. Yet McCain and Russell Feingold are the loneliest guys in Congress. The Republicans think McCain is a sanctimonious traitor. They were furious when he and Feingold wrote to Fortune 500 CEOs asking them to stop contributing money to both parties.

Although they enliven campaigns and force the frontrunners to cope with difficult ideas, mavericks do not usually get to be president. (In William Safire’s “New Political Dictionary,” the entry “maverick,” derived from the name of a Texas cattleman of the 1840s who refused to brand his cattle, cites as references: “See LONER; MUGWUMP.”) Ronald Reagan was a rarity, an upbeat, popular maverick.

Mavericks are always teetering on the edge of idiosyncrasy or extremism. Look at Eugene McCarthy and Jerry Brown. In politics there’s a fine line between ideals and moonbeams, refreshing and Pluto. Mavericks date sexy movie stars and sultry Brazilian models. Droids marry ketchup heiresses. Mavericks can be as ambitious and conniving as other pols but seem also to genuinely care and are willing to take some risks.

Yet, the most promising politicians are the ones who are boring enough to seem safe, the ones who reshape themselves and take positions that will appeal to the largest number of people. Droids are kind and gentle panderers.

Gephardt has transformed himself into a labor populist, to stake out ground in counterpoint to Gore. Forbes has transformed himself into a moral preacher. Like Bush, he has hardened his position on abortion to please the religious conservatives. The man who once cared only about a flat tax now hectors against partial-birth abortion. The man who once thought the Christian Coalition flaky now assiduously woos it.

After eight years of a presidency shaped by polls, after eight years of Cuisinarted, predigested, pretested policies, maybe the public will want something fresh and original.

On the other hand, maybe it won’t. Bill Clinton may have set the right precedent for a time when politics is so plastic and uninspiring. He is not an android and not a maverick. He is a droid who pretends to be a rick. And it works.

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