When the delegates to the

Republican National Convention next summer pick their

nominee for president - or, actually, when the

Republican caucus and primary voters bind those delegates

to vote for one or the other of the current crop of

candidates - they will be deciding more than just

the man (or woman) they want to be their party's

standard-bearer in the 2000 election.

They will be determining

the type of election they want to see next year.

And, that, in turn, may

determine the type of politics which this country will

have for far longer than the one or two terms their

nominee, if elected, will serve.

For, the eight current

candidates for the GOP nomination can roughly be broken

down into two major groups.

On the one hand, you have

those candidates who appeal to the stridently ideological

voters who are demanding to see an issue-based campaign.

They are: multimillionaire

magazine publisher Steve Forbes, former Vice President

Dan Quayle, conservative television commentator Pat

Buchanan, and Religious Right activist Gary Bauer.

You could take these four

men, drop them in a bag, shake it up, pour out one of

them, and you would not know the difference.

Oh, sure, there are minor

differences in backgrounds and experiences. But, you

basically have four conservative clones.

Pretty much the same could

be said about the other four candidates as well -

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, former Red Cross director

Elizabeth Dole, Arizona Sen. John McClain, and former

Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander.

They are not all

ideological clones like the first group, but they are

very similar in campaign styles, personality, and their

politics.

The voters who will choose

them will want to see a candidate who exhibits somewhat

moderate leadership traits and are somewhat more subtle

in their criticism of the incumbent Democratic

administration.

Now, be careful about using

that term moderate: Every Republican contender this year

- as in years gone by and probably in years to come

- is a conservative.

The 2000 campaign for the

Republican presidential nomination is not going to be any

philosophical battle like 1964 between a liberal in the

mold of former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and a

conservative in the mold of former Arizona Sen. Barry

Goldwater.

Rather, it will be a fight

to determine whether the 2000 election will be a rerun of

the 1980 presidential race - which pitted a

"true believer" conservative Republican against

a wimpy, moderate Democrat - or of the 1960

presidential campaign - which pitted two nice guys

with very similar political philosophies against one

another.

Personally, I believe it

will be the latter - especially if Bush maintains

his front-runner position and eventually wins the

nomination.

And, it may very well turn

out like that election as well - with the sitting

vice president narrowly losing to the nonthreatening (and

somewhat nontraditional) challenger.

The 1960 election -

unlike virtually all the presidential races over the

succeeding four decades - was not an ideological

battle.

There were no major

competing visions of where the two candidates wanted to

lead the nation: It was a choice between personalities,

styles and images.

(Now, I am not suggesting

that there were no issue differences between the two

candidates; there were; but, those differences -

even in foreign policy, where they were most evident

- were not portrayed as some type of great moral

crusade between the two parties' philosophies as has been

the case since Vietnam hardened our partisan

divergences.)

If Bush is the nominee, he

will not be a strident voice like that of former U. S.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich whom voters in this area came

to know and love (or hate) so well.

Rather, he will run like

JFK, depending on his personality - rather than his

issues - to sway the voters.

And, that might very well

be the type of leaders the voters will seek in 2000.

[Lee N. Howell is an

award-winning writer who has been observing politics and

society in the Southern Crescent, the state, and nation

for the past 25 years.

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