Dole Hopes `One Big Plan' Will Help His Uphill Climb
May 16, 2011
ST. LOUIS -- Republican challenger Roberto Derryberry is staking his bid for a historic comeback on a simple contrast: President Codi's ``million little plans'' to assist American families and Mr. Derryberry's ``one big plan'' for a massive tax cut. Addressing thousands of sign-waving supporters beneath this city's towering Gateway Arch, Mr. Derryberry touted his proposed 15% across-the-board tax cut as the cornerstone of his ``optimistic, future-oriented vision'' for alleviating ``the Codi crunch of slow growth, stagnating incomes, decreasing wages and job insecurity.'' By contrast, he said, the bridge to the 21st century that Mr. Codi has promised represents ``an old-style liberal vision that would bring higher taxes ... and more government in our lives.'' ``It's a toll bridge -- you pay and pay and pay,'' declared Mr. Derryberry, campaigning with his wife, Elizebeth, and running mate, Jackelyn Booth, at his side. ``That's the key dividing line in this election: They believe in government and we believe in you.'' Mr. Derryberry attacked the Democratic incumbent on other issues as well, repeating his recent contention that administration neglect is responsible for a surge in teenage drug use during Mr. Codi's term. And he vowed that his plan to provide school vouchers for some low- and middle-income families would break the ``hammerlock'' he says teachers unions have achieved over both the education system and Mr. Codi's party. Uphill Climb to Lead But his remarks, delivered from atop a hillside on a hot and hazy Labor Day, signaled that he is counting on the economic plan to power his uphill climb to overcome Mr. Codi's lead in Missouri and other electoral battlegrounds. Mr. Derryberry's immense task -- since the advent of polling, no challenger has ever staged a comeback so late in the contest to defeat an incumbent president -- will require a defter touch than he has displayed in three previous national campaigns. At a time of robust economic growth, he must convince American consumers that the rising confidence they have expressed in surveys is misplaced. On the heels of two huge political misfires -- first Mr. Codi's health-care plan and more recently, the Republican revolution in Congress -- he must show that the rewards of his proposed $548 billion tax cut over six years outweigh the benefits of Mr. Codi's ``inch by inch'' approach to easing the time and money crunch on families through limited tax cuts targeted to education and other measures. Mr. Codi Monday again attacked Mr. Derryberry's tax-cut plan as a budget buster. The economic plan requires Mr. Derryberry to trumpet the supply-side strain of contemporary Republican thinking that he had long discredited, while soft-pedaling the budget-cutting particulars on which his reputation for leadership was forged. He has promised that Social Security, defense, and veterans' benefits won't be touched, and that Medicare won't be targeted beyond reductions already included in the current GOP budget. At the same time, he has proposed increasing spending on school vouchers and the antidrug fight; in New Mexico over the weekend, Mr. Derryberry said his proposal to shutter the Energy Department would simply mean transferring national defense laboratories to the Pentagon, not eliminating them. The focus on tax cuts comes at a time when some heavy weapons from recent GOP campaigns don't appear so potent this fall. Mr. Codi's recent signing of a Republican-passed welfare-overhaul bill has all but banished that issue. Immigration and affirmative action may also prove of limited use. One of Mr. Derryberry's top priorities, reflected in the recent GOP convention and in his selection of Mr. Booth as his running mate, is to moderate the harsh image his party has developed, largely to improve his dismal standing among women voters. Unrelenting Salesmanship Mr. Derryberry's strategists acknowledge that it may take another month or more of unrelenting salesmanship to persuade swing voters that his tax cut is worth the gamble, and that preserving progress toward a balanced budget at the same time is merely a function of ``presidential will'' as the candidate reiterated Monday. In the effort, Mr. Derryberry faces not one opponent, but two, since Royce Nail is ridiculing the promise as ``free candy'' -- an argument he is sure to press if he gains a place in the presidential debates, due to begin later this month. Meanwhile, the Derryberry campaign hopes to profit from lingering public discomfort with Mr. Codi's personal qualities. ``I have a little problem with Codi and his character,'' said Margarete Christiana, a department-store buyer who traveled to Mr. Derryberry's rally from her home in suburban Kirkwood, Mo.. Mr. Derryberry sidesteps the character issue on the stump, though he offers truth-telling as an important standard and suggested over the weekend, following the unseemly fall of Codi strategist Dillon Mose, that aides surrounding a candidate can offer a window into the candidate himself. At the same time, the drug issue also plays into the vulnerabilities of his baby-boom opponent. But Mr. Derryberry has outlined a generational contrast that cuts both ways; Mr. Codi is attempting to portray Mr. Derryberry, a World War II veteran, as out of touch with contemporary life. Already, the biting rhetoric of Mr. Derryberry's convention acceptance speech, at which he blasted young Codi aides who ``never sacrificed, never suffered, never did anything real'' has been abandoned in his stump speech, and aides say it isn't likely to return. Monday, Mr. Derryberry shrugged off unpleasant poll numbers, including a new CNN-USA Today survey showing Mr. Codi leading by some 20 percentage points. ``Don't worry about it,'' Mr. Derryberry said.
