You have to give the Republicans credit for their smooth packaging this campaign year. They had no Pat Buchanon breathing out divisive words or a garrulous Newt Gringrich that chilled the majority of their voter base.

This year the Republicans came out as the new Republicans, the broad tent party that welcomed people who did not all look as if they had come out of a cookie cutter. There were brown eyes and blue; there were voices of those they had claimed were in their party but had never showed. Indeed, they have finally realize, I think, that the white vote only was not going to get them into the White House because there are not enough White voters who believe as they do to get them there.

The Republicans drove Pat Buchanon from their party and for good reason--everyone saw what he did to Ross Perot's party--and recruited one of the Bush boys who spoke plainly and almost compassionately to America, as that family made America know that they have included Hispanics in the family and Spanish in their language.

And they pushed General Colin Powell out in front of America, even though he said things they really don't like--Affirmative Action, etc.; then they touted Congressman J.C. Watts along with Colin Powell as being the new voices and hues represented in their party. One did not hardly recognized the Republicans. There was talk that they were stealth Republicans.

But the most masterful stroke on their part was the strategy that was so effective on Al Gore. They literally scared him into not wanting the 800 pound gorilla, President Clinton, in his campaign. Gore indicated that he wanted to show that he was his own man. Of course that makes no real sense in money politics, and presidential politics is money politics.

The Republicans suggested that if Clinton got into the campaigning that they would tie Gore to him. Well, Gore is, without a doubt tied to Clinton. He was/IS his Vice President. And Gore, with his Tipper Gore morality did not want to be tied to Clinton immoral acts.

No one believes that Gore is tied to the Monica Lewenski affair. Furthermore, most Americans are not concerned about this aspect of Bill Clinton. Matter of fact, he presently has a higher job approval rating than any president in last term. The fact probably is that were he running again, even after Monica Lewenski and Impeachment, the American people would put him back. Although Clinton may not be able to keep this pants zipped up, he is smarter than the lot of slow talking Republicans on Capital Hill.

Furthermore, Americans are more than hypocritical when they talk about morality. America is not a moral nation; it has never been. That is not to say that there are not moral citizens in this nation. Indeed there are, but as a whole, America has always rationalized its peccadilloes and immoralities, looked the other way when it came to their misbehaviors and even their atrocities; yet they have held others to a higher standard than they were willing and able to meet.

The latest George W. Bush DUI lie is a case in point. While he was crossing the country talking about Gore's inability to tell the truth or stop exaggerating his record, Bush was living a lie and exaggerating his own. Many of the Bush supporters who were supposedly concerned about bring decency and honor back into the White House are willing to give him a pass of this action, using the classic American blindness to our history and trite rationalizations we are so historically proned to use. The statements that have been uttered excusing Bush range from ridiculous to feeble mindedness.

Republicans know that Clinton campaigning is a threat; they know that Bill Clinton is a master politician who has vanquished them and all their efforts. Even when they were touting who brilliant Newt Gingrich was, Bill Clinton was mastering him. What the Republicans feared the most in this campaign season was that Clinton would come in and do what he has always done to them. That is why they were brilliant in scaring Gore out of enlisting the aid of the President.

The idea that Clinton is too tainted and dirty is a Tipper Gore moral stance that has no place in hardball politics. Presidential politics is hardball and dirty, so let's "not talk rot, Whitney".

Finally, a greater fear than being dirtied by Clinton has overtaken Mr. and Mrs. morally clean Gore. That is a fear is that the White House is slipping out of their hands.

Their first strategy was to bash Ralph Nader for running a good, credible campaign to build his party. When that was ineffective, and the campaign polls showed that Bush was slightly ahead, Gore realized that he needed that Democratic base to come out in numbers greater than the lackluster support he was getting. Who was better to get that happening than Bill Clinton?

This campaign should have never been this close. As Bill Maher said, can you imagine it? The Republicans seriously put up George W. Bush for president. Haven't Americans heard that name before and rejected it? No one has raised the one-term Bush Sr., factor. The American people put him out of office for good reason--he was a bad president. Why would the American people allow him back into the White House through his son? Wasn't it Reagan and Bush who made and presided over the mess Bill Clinton found?

Since this campaign is so close, Gore has been scared into thinking straight at the last moment. And if his campaigned is pulled out of the fire, and I think it will be, Bill Clinton will be the difference that has prevailed for him. When Clinton came to California, one could see his old campaigning fire and that James Carvelle war-room mode that he was in.

Bill Clinton is Slick Willie, and he is just what the doctor ordered for a sick Gore campaign. But the Republicans almost pulled one of their most brilliant acts on the Democrats. This blind spot may pose some problems in a Gore Administration. For this time he was blind and stubborn almost to his own harm. Will he persist in this blindness to as President Gore to the harm of the American people is a question that needs to be considered.[]
Frank A. Jones