Meanwhile, across the fiver, Powell himself was in a private meeting in his book-lined business office in Alexandria, Va. His guest was Haley Barbour, the wily Mississippian who is chairman of the Republican Party. On paper, Powell engenders GOP dreams of an FDR-size sweep in 1996: a “realigning” tide of the kind that rises two or three times a century. So Barbour’s message was, literally, inviting. Powell would be warmly welcomed in the race for the GOP nomination, Barbour said. If Powell won it, he would enjoy the full support of the party. The only person Barbour told about the meeting was House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who’s been careful not to criticize Powell. “I have no idea what kind of candidate anybody’s ever going to make,” Barbour told NEWSWEEK later. “But could Powell win? Sure.”
Colin Powell, those who know him say, is ready to decide, and to announce the results, perhaps this week. “It changes day to day,” said one close adviser. But time was about to run out. “There are timetables and deadlines to meet,” said Charles Kelly, leader of a Draft Powell effort. “A decision has to be reached. The troops are in place, waiting.”
While they were waiting, Powell and his advisers were taking one last look at fundamental political questions. On which side of the Potomac does Republican reality lie? Is the right wing as strong as it claims? Would his race, probably a help to him in a general election, be a handicap in the GOP contest? How would his entry affect the other candidates? And is Powell himself “combat ready”?
His enemies’ warnings were blunt. “Colin Powell is not acceptable,” said Carol Long of the National Right to Life organization. If he runs, she said, “our top priority during the primaries will be his defeat.” A Powell candidacy would tear the party apart, said Gordon Jones of the Association of Concerned Taxpayers, since it “guarantees a third-party candidacy” on the right. The race card was played by Morton Blackwell, a GOP National Committee man from Virginia. Even accommodationist conservatives would never support a man with such views if he were white, Blackwell fumed. Patti Weyrich, like Blackwell a founding father of the “movement,” raised “character” questions. The retired general, he said contemptuously, was a cautious man who had risen in the manner of the Gilbert and Sullivan figure who became “ruler of the Queen’s Navy by polishing the handles on the big brass front door.”
Reasons for the antagonism are obvious. Having helped to stage a “revolution” in Congress, Powell’s enemies fear a counterrevolutionary coup. Strip away the nuances of Powell’s rhetoric, his enemies say, and you have a pro-choice, pro-affirmative-action Rockefeller Republican who is all too comfortable with Big Government. “He’s not the man we spent 30 years building the party for,” Weyrich huffed.
But if the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was unnerved at the prospect of all-out war with the right’s Republican guards, neither he nor his counselors showed it. Powell didn’t even bother to watch them on television, press aide Bill Smullen said. Powell’s camp was both indignant and breezily dismissive. “It was a contemptible display by people who are supposed to believe in family values and Christian principles,” said Kelly. The Press Club event was just “chest thumping by portly conservatives” afraid of having their weakness exposed, said Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol. Powell’s normally circumspect best friend, former Pentagon official Richard Armitage, was on the record this time. “For the most part,” he said, “their insults honor those at whom they were directed.”
The polling numbers are inviting, but not overwhelmingly so. The most recent show that Powell would be a strong contender for the Republican nomination, but not a colosus. He would create, at the start, a twoway race with GOP Majority Leader Robert Dole. But in an NCC-Wall Street Journal poll, Powell trailing Dole by a more substantial margin among Republicans nationality: 36 percent for Dole and 22 percent for Powell. Among self-described conservatives, Powell trailed badly a sign that the anti-powell crusade may be having some effect. “And his highest percentage will be on the day he announces,” said a Dole adviser.
Would Powell’s African-American heritage be an issue in a GOP nomination contest? There already is a black candidate in the field, though an obscure one with little support. He’s Alan Keyes, a staunchly conservative, anti-abortion talk-show host. The Powell situation is different. His generally “liberal” views on abortion, affirmative action and gun control would “magnify” attention to his race, said Democratic poll-taker Harrison Hickman, an expert on Southern voters who have migrated to the Republican Party. “He has to be more demonstrably conservative on at least some issues,” said Hickman. “If he’s not, these Republican voters are going to look at him and say, ‘See, he’s just another black politician.’ And that won’t help him in their primaries.”
Beltway insiders tended to dismiss the rout of the lineup that attacked Powell last week. There were some valid reasons for doing so. For one, they overplayed their hand, sounding strident and defensive. “I happen to think it is a bit risky to say to the guy, ‘Don’t even get into the race’,” talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who has refrained from attacking Powell, told NEWSWEEK. “I say, let the guy in. The Republican Party can handle it.”
It’s also important to note who hasn’t been squawking. Christian Coalition leaders have said Powell’s chances are “extremely dim,” but they haven’t dismissed him altogether. The true arbiter of the new conservative hegemony-Gingrich-was quiet in public and privately supportive. Powell, for his part, has said he supports “most” of the “Contract With America.” Gingrich may be playing a deeper game. In effect, he’s helping Powell diminish the stature of the existing field. If Powell then decides not to run, Newt may have no choice but to fill the void.
The public attacks on Powell are about tactics as much as principle, often orchestrated by Dole allies. The American Conservative Union, the first group to denounce Powell, did so at the urging of its chairman, David A. Keene, a longtime Dole supporter. Keene, in turn, got the idea from another Dole supporter, Washington public-relations executive Craig Shirley. Of those who spoke at the Press Club, several were supporters of other contenders: Blackwell and Jones back Sen. Phil Gramm; Virginia politician Mike Farris supports Pat Buchanan.
Then, too, there are doubts about whether the Washington-based commanders of the anti-Pow-ell crusade control the army they claim to lead. According to the polls, Powell’s pro-choice position on abortion actually helps him with GOP primary voters overall. Advisers such as Kristol, Jack Kemp, Lynne Cheney and Bill Bennett have told Powell that the conservative rank and file won’t follow their commanders. “Powell goes around them and appeals directly to their supporters,” said Kristol. “That scares them. They want everyone to think that their followers are ideological and orthodox. Well, they’re not.”
And to some extent, the angry words have less to do with Powell himself than with the ongoing internecine feud between conservatism’s two main factions. The Press Club lineup was representative of what used to be called the New Right. They consider themselves populists, offer simple answers, have no patience for the complexities of dismantling the welfare state and rarely focus on minority concerns. They favor a flat tax and a constitutional amendment banning abortion, and support strict anti-immigration measures and a law making English the official language of the United States.
Powell’s strongest support is among “neoconservatives.” They have a more academic bent, are more comfortable with establishment power, worry about how best to use conservative principles to help minorities and the poor, and are willing to tolerate a range of views on abortion. They opposed a tough anti-immigration measure on the ballot in California last year. The hatred between the camps is intense. The neocons view the New Right as intolerant, and a threat to the GOP’s chances of becoming a true majority party. The New Right would just as soon see the neocons go somewhere else. “Bill Bennett and Jack Kemp are like Thelma and Louise,” says Buchanan. “They’re holding hands as they go over the cliff.”
Still, it would be a mistake for Powell to underestimate the New Right’s clout. No one disputes that anti-abortion, anti-tax, anti-gun-control groups were instrumental in the GOP’s 1994 congressional victories. As the relative power of the national media has declined in politics, a new conservative communications network has taken shape. Weyrich’s cable channel reaches 11 million households. Talk radio has become an important-and largely conservative-force. Sales of conservative books and magazines are on the rise. Even Kristol’s Weekly Standard, bank-rolled by Rupert Murdoch, is careful to balance its pro- and anti-Powell pieces.
Although they are admittedly Beltway operatives, the reach of some of Powell’s antagonists is broad and deep. An example is Grover Norquist, who heads a group called Americans for Tax Reform. Bearded and owlish, he seems easy to ignore. But although his group claims only 60,000 members, Norquist says he has close contacts with nearly 1,000 local anti-tax groups. His lines of communication, from faxes to Web sites, are state of the art. So far, he’s managed to get seven of the 10 declared GOP candidates to sign his “no new taxes” pledge. When Dole announced his candidacy, Norquist was on the plane. Especially in early caucus and primary states, the power of groups like Norquist’s is real. “Look,” concedes Kristol, “nobody’s saying that this is going to be a lay down for Powell.”
By all accounts, Powell has made no effort to reach out to New Bight groups-or even to investigate their true strength. It’s a puzzling omission for a military man who believes so fervently in the importance of accurate “intel.” Norquist says he has repeatedly sought a meeting with Powell or his lieutenants to discuss the fiat tax-a natural topic on which Powell might want to make a “conservative” mark. He’s never gotten a return call. Pro-lifers and other groups say the same thing. Late last week conservative Powell supporters like Kemp were calling friends about how to defend Powell on weekend talk shows. “Powell has to give us something to hang our hats on,” said one. “So far, it’s been nothing but benign neglect.”
Declared candidates, meanwhile, are working feverishly to line up New Bight support. Dole has assiduously courted the right; his entire campaign is based on the premise that the conservatives control the early nominating process. Publisher Steve Forbes is rising steadily in the polls by touting a flat tax. Gramm, who takes a tough line on issues such as affirmative action and taxes, won a surprisingly strong victory last Saturday in a straw poll of 1,400 GOP activists in Maine. Though Buchanan has tried to expand the reach of his campaign with an appeal to economic nationalism, he still draws his strongest support from pro-life activists.
With so many candidates massing troops on the party’s right flank, Powell may be concluding that there is open ground to exploit on the other side of the battlefield. Does he know something his potential rivals don’t? We will find out only if he runs.
While Dole and the other Republicans have been waiting for the general to decide, they’ve furiously handicapped their chances – offering a telling glimpse of the state of play in a party long divided between conservatives and moderates. Spin versus reality:
Steve Forbes
His spin: If moderate Powell is in the race, Dole will position himself as the “true conservative,” and that’s when Forbes will toast him by exposing his tax-raising record in the Senate.
The reality: Embarrassing Dole on taxes only buys Forbes second place. The CEOs who subscribe to Forbes’s magazine are afraid of his flat-tax talk and are in love with the general.
Lamar Alexander
His spin: A Powell candidacy will create chaos in the GOP, and Alexander, the bridge-builder between moderates and conservatives, is the party’s only sane antidote.
The reality: If Powell joins the race, the general could be seen as a much more impressive, even saner bridge-builder between the party’s contending factions.
Bob Dole
His spin : If Powell runs, the general’s stature knocks out Gramm, leaving Dole with only Powell as a real rival. And in that race, conservatives reject Powell and unite behind the senator.
The reality: Party veterans, searching for a winner, could abandon Dole for Powell, possibly creating an opening for Gramm. The primaries would be a fight, but Powell is the fresher figure.
Pat Buchanan
His spin: Powell personifies an American Dream Pat’s crowd says is now out of reach. The general is the perfect dramatic foil in Buchanan’s Maniche-art war for the GOP’s soul.
The reality: His true believers will follow him anywhere, even on an independent run-but threatening to leave the party is not the way to be taken seriously during the primaries.
The President and the General
Powell seems to be what Clinton is not: disciplined descisive. Talk of the general’s candidacy has unnerved a worried White House as it struggles to war-game 1996.
title: “Moment Of Truth” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-27” author: “Richard Parker”
Taiwan’s voters didn’t flinch. After hours of suspense, waiting for the results, the Taiwan electoral commission announced that Chen had won a blistering three-way battle. Throughout the island, jubilant Chen supporters jammed the streets. At a massive celebration in North Taipei, a beaming Chen faced a sea of supporters, singing, laughing and chanting his earthy nickname: “President A-Bian! President A-Bian!” Dressed in a neatly zippered golf jacket, Chen stepped onto the stage and proclaimed, “This is a new page in Taiwan’s democracy.”
Taiwan, and perhaps China, will never be the same. The election, the first democratic transition of power from one party to another in 5,000 years of Chinese history, shakes all of the old certainties that have prevailed for the past half century: KMT dominance, China’s grumbling forbearance and the “strategic ambiguity” of the China-Taiwan relationship. In a way, Chen’s victory–and defeat for the KMT–represents Taiwan’s ultimate declaration that the civil war with China, left unresolved when the KMT fled 50 years ago, is over. The new ruling party has little interest in such ancient history. But for exactly that reason, the election could mark the beginning of an even more dangerous era of conflict. Even before the voting began last week, the drumbeat of a new war was resounding across the Taiwan Strait. “The Chinese people are ready to shed blood and sacrifice their lives defending the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the motherland,” Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji threatened in a press conference.
Taiwan’s voters paid no heed. In the crush of supporters partying in the streets after Chen’s victory, Migi Liu, 22, screamed over the din: “It’s a holy moment because the Taiwanese used love and hope to overcome threats and darkness.” Across town, in front of the KMT’s gleaming $80 million headquarters, crowds hurled eggs and shouted, “Down with the black money of the KMT.” This exuberant sense of freedom and fearlessness has blossomed under outgoing President Lee Teng-hui, whom Beijing dubbed the “sinner of the millennium.” Lee launched democratic reforms and encouraged the revival of long-suppressed Taiwanese culture. The island’s economy flourished–and a new sense of pride emerged. Chen, a longtime dissident lawyer and defender of Taiwan’s right to independence, embodies that bold new identity.
For now the future is filled only with questions. Chen received 39 percent of the vote, compared to 37 percent for independent (and former KMT stalwart) James Soong and 23 percent for KMT candidate Lien Chan. Chen owes his victory to a split within the KMT as much as to a deep yearning for change. How will the new president, who won just over a third of the vote, govern a society that is more deeply divided than ever before? How will he balance his desire to root out the KMT’s legacy of corruption against his need to build alliances with political foes? And, looming over everything, is the question of China: will Chen be able to assert Taiwan’s identity without sparking a war?
Chen moved quickly to quell people’s fears. On Saturday night the president-elect took the moderate line he had adopted during much of the campaign. Though he supports outgoing President Lee’s controversial policy of “state-to-state” relations with China–a formulation that enraged Beijing as a violation of its “one China” policy–Chen has said it would not be enshrined in the Constitution. He also pledged not to initiate a plebiscite unless China invaded Taiwan. At a packed press conference soon after his victory was announced, Chen urged both sides to improve relations with “intelligence and courage” and offered to open direct-trade links with mainland China. “In the future we will use the most positive and friendly gestures to build a constructive dialogue with mainland China,” he said. “Peace and security in the Taiwan Strait is our goal, our promise… and our hope.” The tone was certainly different from last Wednesday, when Chen, responding to Zhu’s heated rhetoric, fired up a rally by saying: “Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country; it is not a part of the People’s Republic of China.” As president-elect, Chen invited Zhu and Chinese President Jiang Zemin to “come and visit us,” adding that he hopes to visit Beijing himself.
But the mood in Beijing has turned alarmingly bellicose. Beijing took a muted wait-and-see posture after Chen’s victory. But just days earlier mainland academics had warned the new president that China might revert to force at any time. “If you are moving toward Taiwan independence, it could be three to five years–or there could be a change within 24 hours,” said Li Jiaquan of the Taiwan Studies Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Beijing’s threats may not have worked as an electoral strategy, but experts on China worry they may have lit a fuse that will be hard to extinguish. U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, in Japan last week, advised that “both sides should lower the rhetoric and lower the tension and then try to work this out in a peaceful fashion rather than one of intimidation and confrontation.” Cohen said there were no signs of unusual troop movements or other hints that Beijing was about to engage in any missile-firing war games, as it had during the 1996 Taiwanese election. But the threat is there. And with its big new budget, the Chinese Army appears to be building an arsenal meant for just one target: Taiwan (box).
With so much at stake, it’s no wonder that the election was a nerve-racking ride. Taiwan has become familiar with raucous campaigns ever since martial law was lifted in 1987 and democracy began to blossom. The first presidential election, four years ago, was a milestone in the island’s development from a dictatorship to a modern republic. But no Taiwanese election has ever been so bitterly contested as this one. Not everybody could cope with the fear and uncertainty. Over the past two weeks, the psychiatric ward at Taipei’s Adventist Hospital reported a sharp rise in those diagnosed with depression, anxiety, even panic attacks related to the election. Kaohsiung Life Lines, a phone-counseling service, in southern Taiwan, reported getting inundated by calls from citizens so paralyzed by indecision that they wanted someone to help them decide for whom to vote.
Scaring the daylights out of Taiwanese voters was, in fact, a central electoral strategy for both Beijing–and the KMT. As support for Chen swelled last week, the party desperately tried to persuade Taiwanese not to vote for him. It trotted out much-admired President Lee, who warned that a Chen presidency would lead to economic chaos and instability. The next day, sure enough, the stock market dropped 6 percent–sparking accusations that the KMT had used its vast network of businesses to manipulate trading. The KMT aired TV ads that showed young men marching forlornly off to war. KMT candidate Lien intoned: “If the DPP is elected, youngsters will have to trade in their Chen campaign caps for the steel helmets of the battlefield.” Then he got personal. In one KMT ad, a distant cousin of Chen’s accused the candidate of abandoning her to poverty–a claim with extra impact in a society where familial responsibility plays a central role. “If Chen can’t take care of a relative,” says the old woman, “how can he be expected to take care of a nation?”
Chen has felt the KMT’s wrath before. The son of a poor farmer who became the top graduate of Taiwan’s most prestigious law school, he got his first taste of politics in 1980 when he defended one of nine men arrested in protests against the KMT dictatorship. Chen lost the case but saved the man from execution, and quickly rose to prominence in the nascent independence movement–and on the KMT’s blacklist. In 1985, a day after he received an anonymous death threat, a truck tried to run down Chen and his wife in an alley. The vehicle missed Chen, but hit his wife, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. The next year Chen served eight months in prison for publishing an article in an underground magazine that harshly criticized a prominent author. (Chen’s running mate, feminist and pro-independence firebrand Annette Lu, was also imprisoned for a year under the KMT.) Chen stayed in politics, though. And in 1994 he became the first non-KMT mayor of Taipei. As mayor, Chen was tough, effective and quirky–donning Superman’s cape, hosting rock concerts, and cracking down on corruption and prostitution.
During the campaign, Chen tried to prove that he wouldn’t be reckless in dealing with China. Beside his more moderate words–which signaled a willingness not to push the idea of independence–he ran a clever ad that focused on his son, who will soon begin his compulsory military service. Chen, the ad suggested, will be the least likely to go to war, since his own boy would be on the front lines. In his quest to promote “perpetual peace in the Taiwan Strait,” Chen proposed setting up a nonpartisan committee to seek a dialogue with the mainland. But the most reassuring news came last week when he received the endorsement of Taiwan’s lone Nobel Prize laureate, chemist Lee Yuan-tseh. Promoted as a possible peace envoy to Beijing (where he is highly respected and has an honorary title), Lee–known as “the conscience of Taiwan”–was responsible for swaying many undecided urban voters in the final days of the campaign, analysts say.
The campaign scare tactics–by both the KMT and Beijing–backfired. Beijing has blown it before: in 1996, during Taiwan’s presidential election, Beijing’s missile exercises led to a landslide victory for Lee, Beijing’s nemesis. Similarly, last month, soon after China released a white paper threatening to invade Taiwan, 45 percent of the population indicated in a poll that they would rather be identified as Taiwanese than as Chinese. It was a 10 percent jump over previous surveys. By voting for Chen, “Taiwanese voters want to tell Beijing that ‘we want to decide our own future’,” says political scientist Andrew Yang. “They’re not trying to provoke China, they just feel that Beijing has nothing to offer Taiwan.”
For many islanders, in fact, the election hinged not on relations with China but on change within Taiwan. Young voters, who made up one quarter of the electorate, are particularly incensed by the corruption and undemocratic practices of the KMT, the only ruling party they have ever known. “Democracy is the real key to our long-term security,” says lawyer Kenneth Chiu. “Having the KMT step down is one more big step.” President Lee may have paved the way for democracy, but he left a legacy of corruption, cronyism and money politics that Chen hopes to eradicate. “Without a peaceful transformation of political parties, this can’t be called a true democracy,” he told NEWSWEEK shortly before the election. “With this election, Taiwan will rise or fall.”
Chen will have his work cut out for him. He will have to prove that he represents all of Taiwan. Before he tackles his domestic agenda–judicial and electoral reform top the list–he will have to appeal to the descendants of mainlanders who, though a dwindling minority, still have powerful positions in government and the military. Chen will also need to build political alliances. The DPP controls many local governments, but it has few people with “national” experience. It controls just 70 of the 225 seats in the legislature, while the KMT holds 123. Such numbers may make it hard for Chen to fulfill his promise to “purge” the KMT of its illegitimate assets, which analysts estimate in the billions of dollars.
Will Chen measure up to his historic role? Even some of his supporters worry that he is too young, untested and limited in his understanding of international affairs to cope with threats from the mainland. Last Saturday night the island was full of hope–and a new sense that the people were in control of their own destiny. “This is like seeing your own child being born,” says Bala Liu, 17, sporting a buzz cut and purple octagonal glasses. “Now we can use our ideals to raise him and make him into something great.” It was almost as if Beijing’s threats had faded away. Now it’s a matter of seeing whether Chen–and China–can deliver peace rather than war.
