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Money can't buy you love Forbes Goes, and the Magic Goes With HimBy Rick Horowitz
What'll we do for excitement now that Sparkplug Steve is gone? You were thinking the very same thing, I know you were -- and who can blame you? The announcement came like a thunderbolt from the blue: "Forbes Quits Presidential Race." All across the country, people stopped in their tracks, tried to digest the news and... And went back to doing exactly what they'd been doing. Can you say "Boring"? Can you say "Boring and Rich"? Here's how bad it was for Steve Forbes by the time he threw in the super-plush towel: The latest national USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll had him at 2 percent. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 5 points. So he could have been as high as a still-piddling 7 percent -- or as low as minus 3! Minus 3 means what? You owe them votes? They come and repossess your phone banks? Minus 3 doesn't put you in the White House. Minus 3 puts you in the outhouse. Proving once again that the American Dream is still alive: Any geeky semi-billionaire can grow up to be a total washout as a presidential candidate. That's not much to show for all the time he put into this thing, is it? Not to mention all the money he spent. How much money? Depends on who's doing the counting -- 50, 60, maybe even 80 million bucks over the past five or six years. Lots of money, most of it right out of his own pocket. And all of it right down the drain. He'll barely miss it; he's got plenty more millions where those millions came from. But we'll miss him -- the electricity he brought to the campaign trail, the sheer animal passion he conveyed on the stump and at the podium. He was Flavor of the Month for about a minute-and-a-half back in '96, going on (and on) about the flat tax. He didn't get the nomination, or come anywhere close to it, but that didn't stop our Steve. He kept right on running and spending (and spending) right on into the 2000 race. He even discovered religion, an epiphany that seems to have occurred at precisely the moment he realized where the votes are in certain key Republican caucuses and primaries. He claimed, of course, that he'd been a "cultural conservative" all along. (In the hurly-burly of the '96 race, he must have just forgotten to mention it -- it could happen to anyone.) Now, though, there was plenty of competition for those conservative votes. And anyway, the experts say, it's not issues that are moving people this time around; it's biography, and personality and style. But then, who had more style than Steve Forbes? One simple declarative sentence followed by another simple declarative sentence. The same sentences today as yesterday. The same sentences tomorrow as today. The same gently bobbing head. The same self-satisfied smile when he'd delivered himself of another well-rehearsed paragraph. Day after day. Month after month. When Steve Forbes spoke, the nation got goose bumps. Or hives. Something. And now we'll have to get along without him. At least we'll have our memories. In fact, my own favorite moment of the entire campaign so far is a Steve Forbes moment. Not an Al Gore wardrobe-overhaul moment, or a George Dubya Jesus-is-my-philosopher moment, or even an Alan Keyes leaping-into-the-mosh-pit moment. Nope -- it's Steve Forbes the night of the Iowa caucuses, after he's stunned the pundits with a stronger-than-expected second-place finish. He's finally got some momentum (that's what he thinks), and he's anticipating a big Iowa bounce that'll send him into New Hampshire on an upswing, and naturally the networks want a piece of him for their wrap-ups. And so Steve Forbes looks into the camera on this evening of sweet redemption, and with every ounce of enthusiasm he can muster, he announces to the world: "I am pumped." And they say charisma is dead. Posted 2/10/00. For
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Rick Horowitz