The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, yesterday's primaries as seen by Mark Shields & Paul Gigot and Linda Divall; some campaign themes as seen by four historians, regulars Michael Beschloss and Doris Kearns Goodwin, plus Paul Watanabe and Alfred Eckes; how the farm bill looks from the farm, Betty Ann Bowser reports from South Texas; and a new way into cyberspace, Internet expert Halsey Minor explains. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Steve Forbes and Bob Dole celebrated primary victories today. Forbes won yesterday's big one in Arizona, capturing all of the state's 39 delegates to the Republican nominating convention. Dole was second, Pat Buchanan third, Lamar Alexander fourth. Dole's wins were in North Dakota and South Dakota. He took 42 percent of the vote in North Dakota. Forbes ran second, Buchanan third, Alexander fourth. Buchanan ran second to Dole in South Dakota. Forbes and Alexander came in third and fourth respectively. The next Republican primary is Saturday in South Carolina. We'll have more on the primaries right after this News Summary. In economic news today, the Commerce Department reported the U.S. trade deficit for 1995 was $111 billion, a 4.5 percent increase over 1994,and the Labor Department reported consumer prices increased by .4 percent in January. That was the biggest monthly jump in two years. A rise in energy prices due to recent cold weather was the main cause. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he saw these economic numbers as bad news. He told reporters the economy is in poor shape and said the President should be receptive to a budget deal with Republicans.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: My sense in talking to the President on Monday was that there is an opportunity to keep working towards something, but, frankly, you know, if the Senate Democrats, who seem to want to block everything, and if the White House staff end up blocking it, I think we'll do the best we can and wait to get a President who's willing to sign things.

MR. LEHRER: Gingrich said he would consider attaching balanced budget legislation to a bill raising the nation's debt limit. The current debt ceiling will be reached March 15th. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said Republicans a month ago promised a clean extension of the debt limit.

REP. TOM DASCHLE, Minority Leader: I hope that we can hold them to that promise. I think there is an expectation that with or without any add-ons, we will deal with the debt limit in plenty of time prior to March 15th. My preference would be to make it clean to ensure that that happens. But at the very least, I think it's important that we, if anything is added, that it not be controversial, and I can't think of anything more controversial than welfare and Medicaid.

MR. LEHRER: Medicaid and welfare reform were before the Senate Finance Committee. Health & Human Services Sec. Donna Shalala said the administration could not back the reforms proposed three weeks ago by the nation's governors. In Whitewater matters today, Republicans in the Senate Banking Committee passed a resolution to extend Whitewater hearings indefinitely. The party line vote was nine to seven. The resolution provides $600,000 to fund the special committee's investigation. Democrats and Republicans argued their differences.

SEN. ALFONSE D'AMATO, Chairman, Whitewater Committee: The fact of the matter is this isn't about a crime certain. This is about getting the facts. When someone asks the interesting question, well, why, well, why, because that is our job, that is our duty.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD, [D] Connecticut: We've got a legislative function. We're not a grand jury. We're not a criminal investigation body here. We've got a legislative function as a legislative body, and after 47 days of examining all of this, let's move on. We can go on indefinitely. We can carry this through into next Fall and hope something springs up because we haven't discovered something yet, maybe something will happen. That's not the way to proceed.

MR. LEHRER: The resolution is expected to go to the Senate floor tomorrow. Democrats have vowed to block it with a filibuster. In response to the Cuba shootdown, congressional negotiators reached agreement with President Clinton today on tightening economic sanctions against Cuba. The bill will permit Americans to sue foreign companies in Cuba if they are using property confiscated by the Castro government. Many Cubans fled when Castro came to power in 1959, leaving property behind. In London today, June 10th was set for starting peace talks on Northern Ireland. They will include Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, if the IRA resumes its 17-month cease-fire. That cease-fire was broken earlier this month with several bomb attacks in London. The announcement was made by British Prime Minister Major and his Irish counterpart John Bruton. They said they were committed to continuing the peace process.

JOHN MAJOR, Prime Minister, Britain: The Docklands bomb and the appalling acts of terrorism which followed it have undoubtedly been a serious setback to the process, but they have emphatically not broken the process, and the British government and the Irish government are determined that they will not.

JOHN BRUTON, Prime Minister, Ireland: Well, the Irish people of all political persuasions are determined not just to confine their response to this situation with condemnation or expressions of sympathy. They're determined to remove once and for all the causes which lead to this violence.

MR. LEHRER: Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams issued a statement which said a fixed date for talks was essential but enormous difficulties remained in rebuilding the peace process. In Israel today, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said the closure of the West Bank and Gaza will continue indefinitely. It began over the weekend after two suicide bomb attacks in Israel killed 25 people. The militant Muslim group Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombings. In a statement today, it also said it was a Hamas member who crashed his car into a Jerusalem bus stop Monday. One person died and the driver was killed by bystanders. Back in this country, Israeli and Syria negotiators began a third round of U.S.-brokered peace talks outside Washington today. At issue, is Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights and disagreements over security arrangements and future relations. In business news, AT&T announced entrance into the on-line computer business. It will give new customers five free hours on the Internet for 12 months, a monthly charge for unlimited access will follow that. We'll have more on this story at the end of the program tonight. Between now and then, analysis of yesterday's primary results, some historical perspective on the campaign, and the farm bill. FOCUS - CAMPAIGN '96 - FALLOUT

MR. LEHRER: Fallout from yesterday's primaries in Arizona and the Dakotas is first tonight. Our coverage begins with a Kwame Holman report on what the candidates said and did today.

MR. HOLMAN: Last night, Sen. Robert Dole arrived in the nation's capital after winning primaries in North Dakota and South Dakota and losing in Arizona to Steve Forbes. Dole attributed his defeat to the millionaire publisher's spending power. Forbes' campaign spent $4 million in Arizona.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: We can't match that kind of spending, but--

REPORTER: How will you combat that, then, if you don't--

SEN. ROBERT DOLE: I don't know. I mean, if he wants to spend 100, 200 million dollars, it's pretty hard to--we're going to reach our cap one of these days, not very soon, but his, he doesn't have any cap.

MR. HOLMAN: Steve Forbes responded to that criticism this morning.

STEVE FORBES, Republican Presidential Candidate: We've spent so far less in this race than Sen. Dole did, and we're not taking any taxpayer money, but we're getting our message out there one way or the other, whether it's through advertising, directly meeting with the voters, newspapers, talk shows, radio talk shows, whatever way works, we'll do it.

SPOKESMAN: But, Mr. Forbes, how much are you willing to put into this, because these states get bigger?

STEVE FORBES: Well, I've made it very clear that I'll spend whatever it takes to get the message across, but being of Scottish descent, I won't spend a penny more.

MR. HOLMAN: Political commentator Pat Buchanan, who came in third in Arizona, predicted the primaries in the coming week will narrow the contest to a three-man race.

PATRICK BUCHANAN, Republican Presidential Candidate: Charlie, I think the elimination process is really going to begin in earnest in South Carolina and next Tuesday, Georgia, Maryland, Colorado, and the Yankee primary. And I think after that, the establishment is going to settle on Sen. Dole, and we're going to find out how much Steve Forbes' money can buy and our populist insurgency is going to be the third powerful force in this race.

MR. HOLMAN: Former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, who placed no better than fourth in yesterday's primaries, was in Georgia today.

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Republican Presidential Candidate: And in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Dole voters in increasing numbers came to me, and I think that's going to be happening in Georgia and in South Carolina, in Florida, and in the other states as we move along through the primary session.

MR. HOLMAN: The next round of primaries begins Saturday in South Carolina, where candidates will be battling for 37 delegates. Then on Tuesday of next week, eight primaries and a caucus in Georgia, Colorado, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Minnesota. In all, 241 delegates will be up for grabs, the largest delegate total to date this primary season.

MR. LEHRER: Now, how yesterday's results look to our regular team of Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. They're joined tonight by Republican Pollster Linda Divall, who had worked on the Gramm campaign. Let's go through who won and lost what. First, Mark, on Steve Forbes, a victory in Arizona, is he now--does that mean he's back as a serious contender?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Steve Forbes, Jim, has winnowed himself back in. He was almost winnowed out. That's one of the great advantages of having independent finances. Ordinarily, two fourth-place finishes in a row and you couldn't raise the money to pay the light bill, but he just wrote a check and if Bill Clinton was the comeback kid in 1992, Steve Forbes is the comeback capitalist in 1996.

MR. LEHRER: Comeback capitalist, Linda, is that--is it his money, that's all this is about?

LINDA DIVALL, Republican Pollster: Well, I think there are three things in Arizona that propelled him in the first place. I mean, $4 million did help, no doubt about it, but he showed some organizational smarts in terms of targeting the absentee ballot and the senior citizens. I mean, he got 30 percent of the vote with those over 60 years of age. In Iowa, he received only 9 percent with seniors. And No. 3., he had a good message. I mean, if you look at taxes, one out of four voters said taxes was most important to them, and he received about 70 percent of the vote with that group.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. How do you read Arizona, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Well, I think Pat Buchanan's peasants turned out not to have pitchforks but to have pocketbooks, and taxes was a defining issue. The voters who voted favored the flat tax 60 to 37. In other states, it's been split more evenly, 45/45, and Forbes got the bulk of that vote. He had a message that went right at Pat Buchanan's economic group of voters, but with a different message, a much more traditional Goldwater-Reagan message of smaller government, more freedom, reduced taxes, reduced government. It seemed to work.

MR. LEHRER: Back in the race?

MR. GIGOT: I think very much so back in the race, very much so.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Bob Dole, Mark, he won the Dakotas. What does that mean for him?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, Bob Dole's life has been complicated, Jim, by Steve Forbes' reemergence. He was wanting to get this race down to a race between himself and Pat Buchanan, and Steve Forbes' reemergence certainly complicates that. But he had two victories yesterday. He needed two victories, and there's no taking that away from him. Still, it's sort of second guessing because twice now in 1988 and 1996 after losing the New Hampshire primary, Bob Dole was supposed to be the experienced, thoughtful, responsible leader, responded by firing his pollster, and that doesn't look like stable, grown-up leadership.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Coming in--coming in second to or being beaten by Forbes in Arizona, does--the wins in the Dakotas offsets that, do you think, or just keeps things kind of even, or how would you balance the two?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, no, I think that--I think that Arizona became the focus, there's no doubt about it. It wasn't the same way, Jim, not to, not to be mistaken with Iowa and New Hampshire, where all the candidates are there. They're all in an adversarial setting. Mr. Forbes spent more time obviously there than the others and more money, but I think, I think that Bob Dole is very confident coming in here. His people have tracking--

MR. LEHRER: Here being where you are right now, which is in South Carolina.

MR. SHIELDS: In South Carolina.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. SHIELDS: The Saturday race here. His folks have tracking polls which show him 30 points ahead, and that would be enormous victory for him.

MR. LEHRER: How do you assess the Dole element after yesterday?

MS. DIVALL: Well, first of all, not winning Arizona was a serious setback because it was winner-take-all, and they had, I think, cast themselves in the light of being able to survive and overcome Buchanan and they failed in that regard. Yes, they overcame it, but they didn't get that first place win. So they have two goals and the silver to show for it. I think it puts even more pressure on them to win South Carolina. They clearly have the endorsements. They clearly have the organization. I don't think they yet have the message. The debate Thursday, I think, is important because one of the reasons Bob Dole lost this election in Arizona was he was not apparent in Arizona the last three days of this campaign. He avoided the debate. That was news throughout Arizona and throughout the West.

MR. LEHRER: That was a big deal, wasn't it?

MS. DIVALL: It was a big deal, and he had almost 30 percent of the people making up their minds the last three days of the campaign.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Paul.

MR. GIGOT: They are not going to make that mistake again, from what I hear from the Dole camp. They are going--

MR. LEHRER: There's another one in South Carolina, right?

MR. GIGOT: That's right. Tomorrow.

MR. LEHRER: Tomorrow.

MR. GIGOT: And they plan on being there, at least as of now. South Carolina is critical for Bob Dole. He has to, I think he has to win that. And the good news about yesterday was that he beat Pat Buchanan everywhere, and he wanted to prevent Pat Buchanan from having any momentum moving into South Carolina, which is the entryway to the South.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's talk about Buchanan. Bad day for Buchanan yesterday, right?

MR. GIGOT: I think it was. I mean, obviously, it was a third place that was close. But what happened is--

MR. LEHRER: In Arizona?

MR. GIGOT: In Arizona. But what Steve Forbes managed to do was steal one of the elements of Pat Buchanan's attractiveness, which was the outsider label. Among those people who said they don't like Washington, they want somebody who's not a politician, Steve Forbes got the bulk of those votes. The other thing that I think that Pat Buchanan has to be worried about is he's been trying to broaden his base. If he's going to win the nomination, he can't do it with 25 to 30 percent of the vote. You've got to expand, especially if it gets to a two-man race. It looks, and Arizona should have been a state where his message, anti-immigrant mood, populist roots, it should have played.

MR. LEHRER: He worked hard in Arizona.

MR. GIGOT: He worked hard. He always works hard.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. GIGOT: He did the same tactics, talk radio, and he still got only 27 percent. I think this has to be a warning to the campaign.

MR. LEHRER: How do you read Buchanan Arizona results, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: Jim, I think if Pat Buchanan looks back at 1996 with regret, he will have more regret for the week between February 20, 1996 and February 27th than any other. This was the week that Pat Buchanan had the eyes and the years of the American political world upon him. Millions of Americans who had never thought seriously of him as a Presidential candidate before after the New Hampshire upset looked at him with new eyes. And it was a chance for him to reassure them, to broaden that constituency from just the base, passionate base of pro-life voters of gut enthusiasts, and those Americans most concerned about trade agreements and international tribunals. He should have done--he should have made a thoughtful speech to a state legislature, to a world affairs council. He should have cooled himself. He became a hotter messenger with a hotter message. And I think it was a serious mistake. I think it was a chance for him to show a kinder, gentler side, to spend an evening at a Salvation Army shelter, to do things that sent a message beyond just a set of issues that he has become, and I think it was a serious mistake.

MR. LEHRER: Linda.

MS. DIVALL: I think Mark raises a good point. I mean, Pat Buchanan reveled in going around Arizona with his black hats and being a cowboy renegade. And I think what's interesting about Arizona is that I think it reveals three significant components in the Republican Party. You have Steve Forbes represents the economic growth wing of the party and has a vision. You have Pat Buchanan, who represents the social cultural conservative front and in some sense wants to go back to the past, and you have Bob Dole that represents the status quo, the establishment, who is the experienced figure. Nobody is in dominance at this stage of the game, and the interesting thing as we go through the next three weeks of the primary process is which one of these three in terms of the wing of the party they represent moves forward.

MR. LEHRER: So when Buchanan was going around Arizona in his black hat holding a gun over his head, what he was doing was reinforcing the people he already had and not bringing anybody in and scaring them away, in other words, is what you're saying.

MS. DIVALL: Absolutely. I believe that's correct.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Now, the fourth person is Lamar Alexander. Paul, how did--how does--where does he stand tonight as a result of yesterday?

MR. GIGOT: He suffered the most of anybody.

MR. LEHRER: Suffered the most of anybody.

MR. GIGOT: Of anybody. I think he, he finished behind Phil Gramm, who's out of the race, in North Dakota in part because it was a rolling mail-in primary so that the votes started earlier.

MR. LEHRER: We ought to explain that. People in North Dakota could have voted by mail up to 24 hours before and then they could cast a ballot, but they cast these mail, a lot of these mail-in ballots before Gramm got out, right?

MR. GIGOT: Yeah.

MR. LEHRER: That's why Gramm got 9 percent and I think Alexander got 7, 6 or 7.

MR. GIGOT: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: Go ahead.

MR. GIGOT: I think the debate last week in Phoenix hurt him. I think Forbes outperformed him. That was the perception among most people in Arizona. And they've been fighting to see who would become the third candidate, who would be able to challenge Dole, to be able to take on Buchanan, who has this solid base, and it looks to me as if Steve Forbes dislodged him. I think that Lamar Alexander next week, it doesn't look like he's going to do well in South Carolina, so that means next Tuesday in some of the New England states, and in Georgia and Colorado, he has to--he has to get some wins. There is no tomorrow for him.

MR. LEHRER: What's your dope sheet on Alexander, Linda?

MS. DIVALL: Well, Lamar is still winless. I think he has to struggle to be able to stay in this thing through Super Tuesday, which is his strength on the calendar, and I think a lot--

MR. LEHRER: Why is that his strength?

MS. DIVALL: He's saying that he can do better in the Southern states. I mean, that's back home and that is his base. But I think the most significant problem that he faces is this argument that Alexander beats Clinton. You know, one of the things the exit polling data revealed across all three states was the voters believed only one candidate could defeat Bill Clinton, and that candidate was Bob Dole, not Lamar Alexander.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Mark, what's your reading on Alexander tonight?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, as Mr. Dooley said, Jim, politics ain't bean bag, and one fellow said to me today, Lamar Alexander says he can beat Bill Clinton and he can't beat Phil Gramm, who's back in Texas running for reelection to the Senate, so it's an awful kick in the teeth for him. He needs a victory in a hurry. His window is getting shorter, and the task is getting steeper.

MR. LEHRER: And so that--would you agree, then, Mark, that what we're confronted with now are--we're presented with now is--is-- it's a three-man race, and the struggle between Forbes and Dole as to who really opposes Buchanan, or is that simple yet?

MR. SHIELDS: I think Alexander has a shot. I mean, certainly by a week from today if he has not scored that victory and scored it impressive fashion, I think that we'll be getting ready for an exit strategy, but certainly Steve Forbes has climbed back into it, and Jim, it is an enormous advantage not to have your fate, fortune, and future tied to any primary result. And that's the one position Steve Forbes is in. I mean, he--he can say, hey, I'm going to keep going, and New York coming up a week from Thursday next, and I'll tell you, that is--that is really an example of unintended consequences politically. The New York Republican bosses led by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato are about as democratic in letting candidates run as the Albanian government was from 1945 to 1995. They rigged the result so nobody could get on the ballot. Steve Forbes did; he sued in court. The federal judge put him on, and now Bob Dole is in the position of his people having transformed Steve Forbes into an underdog role, a position he's never had in life. And I just-- I mean, this is that kind of a year.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. This is that kind of a year. Linda, Paul had said to me privately before we went on the air, this has been a bad campaign for pundits thus far because each week, each time there's a new thing happens that nobody expected. Do you expect this to continue?

MS. DIVALL: I have to say that what we've learned in this campaign is that each day brings something new and interesting to the scene; it is totally unpredictable. We're dismissing Lamar Alexander. I think we have to be careful about that.

MR. LEHRER: What made me think of that--

MS. DIVALL: There's enough calendar remaining. People could still pick their places. I mean, Steve Forbes could probably leapfrog the South and go to New York, go to the Yankee primaries and go to the Midwest and have money for California and nobody else may have the money to play the game that late.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Well, just in the question that I asked Mark, Paul, that if it's a three-man race, both Steve--you used the three that I used--Forbes and Buchanan and Dole--two of those were written off right at the very beginning, Buchanan and Forbes, and now here we are.

MR. GIGOT: Sure. I mean, there aren't a lot of people in the Forbes campaign who thought they were going to win Arizona until yesterday or the day before. I mean, there was a--I mean, a lot of them were pessimistic. Nobody really knows what's going to happen to this. It's up in flux. I think we have a wide open race; it's complicated by some of the regional strengths and weaknesses of the candidates. Steve Forbes may be stronger in the West and the Northeast. Bob Dole has the organizational Republican Party in the South. Buchanan has a better message for the South. And then there's money.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. GIGOT: You know, nobody really knows what's going to happen.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Mark, it's great for people in our line of work as long as we don't predict anything, right, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: Jim, I'm not even predicting there's going to be an election here Saturday.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Thank you all three very much. FOCUS - CAMPAIGN '96

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, some historical perspective on this Presidential campaign, the Farm Bill and dialing cyberspace. Elizabeth Farnsworth has the campaign story.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Two candidates addressing the economic insecurities of the middle class, commentator Pat Buchanan and publisher Steve Forbes, have had unexpected success in the early days of this campaign season. We get some perspective on this aspect of the Presidential race to date from two NewsHour regulars: Presidential Historians Michael Beschloss and Doris Kearns Goodwin. They are joined tonight by Paul Watanabe, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts and Alfred Eckes, a professor of history at Ohio University and former executive director of the House Republican Conference. Welcome to you all. Doris Kearns Goodwin, let's talk first about Steve Forbes who won the Arizona primary yesterday. He has spent about $25 million of his own money so far on this campaign. Is there any precedent in history of the race for the Presidency that you can think of for this?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: Well, certainly, the amounts of money are much greater than ever before, but the idea that people spend their own money on a campaign certainly surfaced before John Kennedy's campaign. In fact, there's this great moment when John Kennedy was able to joke later about all the charges that he was buying the Presidency by saying that he got a telegram from his father in which his father said, "I don't want you to buy one more vote than necessary; I don't want to buy a landslide." So clearly there's been that anger to some extent about people having money, but on the other hand, America is a funny country. We're the country that people came over from Europe with the paved golden streets. They want to be rich, themselves, most people. So there's also a sense that if somebody's got their own money they're not going to be beholden to special interests, so there's almost a respect for that at the same time as people don't get too happy about the idea that someone's spending millions of dollars to buy their vote. So it's very complex.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Michael, do you agree with that? Do you think that in this time when many people say they're economically secure and yet some people are supporting Forbes, do you think that's why, what Doris just laid out?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Well, I think the amazing thing is that there is not perhaps more resentment of a candidate with that kind of, that degree of resources and who did not perhaps earn it himself. Throughout American history, the wealthy candidates who have tended to have an easier time have been, for instance, Andrew Jackson in the 1820's, Wendell Willkie in 1940. These are people who represented themselves as self-made me. Perhaps second in order would be candidates like John Kennedy, as Doris mentioned. Robert Kennedy spent $5 million in his 85-day campaign in 1968. Nelson Rockefeller spent similar amounts when he ran in 1964 and 1968. These were not self-made leaders, but they could at least say in Rockefeller's case, I've been governor of New York, I am not just someone who is beginning at the top with a lot of resources, and the same thing was true with the two Kennedys. I think there's been a difference in recent years, which is that for the first time in the last few years we have seen a candidate like Ross Perot and now Steve Forbes in 1996 turning this really into a plus. John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy in the 1960s to some degree had to fight a degree of resistance to them as people who were wealthy candidates, perhaps out of touch, certainly able to pour in their own resources. It's really Perot and Forbes in the 1990s who for the firsttime were able to say this kind of money makes us unbought and unbossed.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mr. Eckes, what do you think about this? Forbes is addressing some of the same economic issues as Buchanan. They're both talking about growth or lack of growth and economic change and what needs to change. Do they represent two different approaches to economic change, the two of them?

ALFRED ECKES, Historian: I think they do, Elizabeth. In my view, Forbes would represent the neo-con wing of the Republican Party, which is oriented to tax cutting. I think it follows in the tradition of Jack Kemp, and he might well have been the candidate had he chosen to be. On the other hand, Pat Buchanan, as I see it, represents the traditional wing of the Republican Party, and perhaps is more of a McKinley-Lincoln Republican concerned about the interest, the national interest as opposed to international free trade which seems to be one of the underlining and defining features of the Forbes program, along with tax cuts. I think the, there's going to be--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Excuse me for interrupting. You think Buchanan represents the traditional Republican Party. This is a different view than some would have.

MR. ECKES: Yes, in my review of history, Buchanan's position on the tariff, for example, is consistent with Abraham Lincoln and every Republican from the 1860s up until the 1930s. It was after World War II that the Republican Party became a great advocate of international free trade and, indeed, in Congress, there remained a strong traditional wing led by the father of former President George Bush, Prescott Bush of Connecticut.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Paul Watanabe, do you have anything to add before we move on? We're going to talk more about Buchanan. Do you have anything to add on this question of using your own wealth to run for President?

PAUL WATANABE, Political Scientist: Well, I think that there seems to be no consensus in the electorate. On the one hand, there are people who believe that wealth may mean that you can buy elections. On the other hand, there is this conception that if you have tremendous amounts of wealth, as has been pointed out, you can't be bought. One thing I do think that is very clear, that if elections are, are engagements in which people have to pass a judgment on individuals, you have to be seen so that people can pass that judgment, and there is no doubt in my mind that the wealth of somebody like a Steve Forbes or a Ross Perot makes it possible for large numbers of people to see you. And that's a very important, necessary condition before anyone can pass a judgment on you.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Doris, let's move on to Buchanan and so-called populism. Would you define--many people are talking about Buchanan as a populist--would you define populism for us, and do you think he fits in that category?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think populism traditionally has been a mass movement which somehow sees a struggle between ordinary people which they variously call plain people, real people, average people, the little guy, versus an undemocratic elite, which is variously defined as big business, international organizations, Wall Street, Harvard snobs, and what happens is that at certain moments in our history, when there's real anxiety in the country, usually it's a moment of economic transition as it was in the 1890's, the farmers were feeling left out, their prices were lowering, they were having a very difficult time living. Labor was facing an economic recession, or later--we're seeing it now, that same kind of economic hardship. There seems to be a desire for an easy answer to the problems, and the populace have traditionally provided enemies which gets people roused up, and I think what Buchanan has done has organized that felt sense of anxiety by calling out enemies. In his case, his enemies are not only international bankers and globalists and Wall Street, they're also sadly immigrants, foreigners, the affirmative action problems, and certain--almost he's gotten into creationism, which Bryan was in- -so I think where he fits in is by identifying the problem which is real, which not all the candidates have talked about, but then by providing a kind of passionate evangelical rhetorical answer to the problem, rather than some real remedies that I think are out there, but no one was talking about. There was a vacuum because not the Democrats either, who should have been talking about these problems, had really addressed them, and Buchanan swooped right in.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Alfred Eckes, is Buchanan's populist movement, does it remind you of any specific people in the past?

MR. ECKES: Well, this afternoon, I was reading a new book on populism by American University Historian Michael Kasan, and he makes the case that even Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln were in some sense of the world populists. They certainly identified with the common person, and indeed, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and others have taken on the bankers and Wall Street repeatedly in the past. It's part of the rhetoric of the campaign. And I'm reluctant to see an individual candidate in the Republican Party this year as an extreme candidate. I think they're seeking to mobilize constituencies, some of which have to be reached with code words, some of which have to be reached with appeals to Christian fundamentalism, some of whom are concerned about free trade, some of whom are concerned about the World Trade Organization. Pat Buchanan is a master of the media, having been a product of it. And in that sense, I think he is showing some of the same skills that Theodore Roosevelt used in an earlier era when he knew how to use newspapers to get out his message.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Michael Beschloss, as I remember from history the populists wanted government ownership of things like railroads, didn't they?

MR. BESCHLOSS: Yes, they did. They were very worried about concentrated economic power, and on and off through history they have embraced the idea that government could help the common people perhaps get the kind of rewards from this society that they deserve. That was very much what Huey Long was saying in the 1930s with his program of "every man a king," the idea that this was a very rich society, you should confiscate wealth from the rich and give it to the poor. There is one element of Pat Buchanan's personal history that I think connects him very directly to the history of populism, and that is you go back to 1968. That, as you remember, was a year in which Richard Nixon ran against Hubert Humphrey, they each got about 43 percent. George Wallace, governor of Alabama, with a very populist message talking about law and order and generating this kind of resentment against elites, who had, he said, exploited the common man and woman, got about 10 percent. Richard Nixon, after the '68 election, set about acquiring that Wallace vote. He wanted to make sure that he would be reelected in 1972, and also helped to make the Republicans a majority party. One person very much at his side during those years was Pat Buchanan. He was the speechwriter that Nixon called on to develop themesand language that would appeal to the Wallace voter, and to a great extent, I think, it was during those years that Pat Buchanan honed the kind of appeal that allows him now to appeal in a way that is rather reminiscent of Wallace in 1968.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Paul Watanabe, you're skeptical, aren't you, about this whole labeling of Buchanan as a populist?

MR. WATANABE: Well, I think that while populism surely is a very popular political currency, a lot of the indications in the names that have been mentioned even tonight in terms of individuals identified with the concept indicates that it is so overused that it's been seriously devalued. I'm thinking just in recent times about individuals who themselves have described themselves as populists or commentators have described as populists in some way, and I think of Newt Gingrich, you think of Bill Clinton, you think of Ross Perot, you think of Ronald Reagan, you think of Jimmy Carter, you think of George McGovern, you think of George Wallace, you think of Robert Kennedy, and you think of Joseph McCarthy. Now, the fact of the matter is, is that all of those people claim the populist level. They can't all do so, and it seems to me that it is fundamentally a pretty meaningless concept now, especially if it's defined as has been pointed out as individuals who are in favor and support the common men and women. That is a concept, it's oppositionless. There's nobody on the other side, it seems, in modern politics, that would take the opposite position.

MS. FARNSWORTH: But, Paul, do you think there's any evidence that Buchanan--Michael was just talking about the, what he learned from Wallace--do you think there's any evidence that he's looked at Father Coughlin, for example, or other people in the sort of history of this populist strain in American politics and that he's learned from them?

MR. WATANABE: Well, that's an interesting question, because in, in some ways for like Father Coughlin, or if it's somebody--

MS. FARNSWORTH: And tell us about Father Coughlin a little bit.

MR. WATANABE: Well, he was one of the most traditional populists in the sort of the second phase of the populism in the early part of the 20th century, and this is--you know, individuals like him and many people have argued that the people who succeeded him, people like Joseph McCarthy, people in the George Wallace tradition, that these were individuals who in some respects claimed to be economic populists, if you will, but were actually radical social conservatives in economic populist clothing. That's the kind of judgment, it seems to me, is going to be made of somebody like Buchanan. Is this in some respects a social conservative, a radical social conservative, perhaps a demagogue in some people's view in populist clothing?

MS. FARNSWORTH: And Alfred Eckes, what do you think about that, the--some people would say demagoguery--but the dark strain in general that is in the populist tradition?

MR. ECKES: Well, it certainly is with some of the extreme groups like Father Coughlin and some others.

MS. FARNSWORTH: He was anti-semitic for example.

MR. ECKES: I think that was true, but I don't see that in the current situation. Pat Buchanan has the support, as I understand it, of some rabbis in the Jewish community. There are probably others who oppose him. I think he's seeking a broader constituency, and my guess is over time he'll succeed in broadening that particularly if he focuses on the deficit issue. You know, on March 15th, the continuing resolution expires and the federal government has to have new funding, and there's a great deal of anxiety. I think if he picks up on that issue, I think he could easily broaden this constituency, running against Washington.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Michael, do you think that win or lose, the Buchanan candidacy will change the Republican Party?

MR. BESCHLOSS: I think it will, and the amazing thing is that anything--and I agree with Paul Watanabe that the word populism is immensely overused and one of the most amazing and ironic things is that you see someone like Bill Clinton in 1992 and people for him calling him a populist, not thinking that populism throughout history has had so many of these ugly racist and bigoted strains. But the amazing thing in 1996 is that this populist movement, if we call it that, that we're talking about really comes out of the rib of the Republican Party. In the late 1960's, it really came out of the rib of the Democratic Party, and I think one thing this represents is the degree to which from the 1960's to the 1990's the Republicans have gotten on the verge of becoming a majority party in this country.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Doris, what do you think about the capacity of the Buchanan campaign themes to change the Republican Party or to really influence the selection?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think the really interesting question is maybe even more than the Republican Party is will it influence the tenor of the whole campaign in the Fall? Because it may be that by identifying these economic anxieties, which, as I said, the Democrats have really not focused on, when Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor, used to talk about the need for some sort of social insurance for people who are losing their jobs, for health care to take care of that anxiety, for worker retraining, they used to shush him up in the Clinton administration because they didn't want to get Wall Street upset, and they didn't want to really get this whole balanced budget talk off the dime. So it may be that it will open up a whole debate for the general election. The real difference over time, however, that I think we've got to figure out is that in the past the real populist movement in the 1890's was a grassroots movement. It was a people's movement that then found leaders to articulate its message. The difference between Buchanan and perhaps Wallace and perhaps certainly Father Coughlin, they were people who were creating something out of whole cloth in a sense. They don't have a lot of movement out there, people that are organized together, one another fighting for something from the bottom up. They are manipulating the media and using it in a certain sense to become a spokesman, and that's a much less permanent kind of movement. The original populist movement had an enormous effect on the progressive campaign, on the government legislation during Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson, and that's the hope you would have that these issues would have an effect, but not unless there's a movement from the bottom up, and that may mean the left better start thinking about populism, as well as the right.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Paul Watanabe, do you have anything to add to that?

MR. WATANABE: Well, I think it's true that if the assumption is, is that populism arises out of the excesses presumably of a capitalist society, unfettered capitalism, it seems to me, both then and perhaps now is going to have some serious impacts. There are going to be people who are going to be left out. They are going to be disillusioned, et cetera. The question is that--and I think that that's the debate about Buchanan--whether, in fact, the state, the government will be a mechanism by which to control that excesses of capitalism, or whether, in fact, as Buchanan seems to suggest, unlike the early populists, in fact, government is the problem, not big business.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Thank you all very much. UPDATE - PLANTING TIME

MR. LEHRER: Now, farmers facing an uncertain future. Tomorrow, the House is expected to vote on a major overhaul of federal farm policy. Betty Ann Bowser talked about it recently with several South Texas farmers.

MS. BOWSER: It seems like morning starts slower and slower for L.P. Simmons. His body has 72 years, the pick-up, 160,000 miles. He's been farming in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas since 1950, when he planted his first crop on a mere 24 acres of rented land. Simmons has pretty much seen it all, good crops, bad crops, hurricanes, tornadoes, and one of the things he says he's learned is you can't do much about all that.

L.P. SIMMONS, Farmer: I've learned you can be a good farmer and have bad luck and go broke but you've got to have some luck in farming, because too much depends on forces that you have no control over.

MS. BOWSER: Like most Valley farmers, Simmons grows a mix of crops because the land does not support just one commodity. The hot climate, dry soil, and unpredictable weather suit a combination of sugar cane, cotton, and grains. Throughout the years as prices for those crops have gone up and down, Simmons has had some protection in the form of government farm programs. The government stepped into agriculture policy back in the 1930s when the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression caused thousands of farmers to grow broke. The government bailed out farmers and stabilized prices. Here's how the federal farm program works. A farmer plants certain crops for which the government sets a target price. If the farmer can't get that price when it's time to harvest, the government makes up the difference. In return, the farmer has to follow government rules on how much land to plant, and sometimes even which crops to grow. And while Washington has been cutting back on farm subsidies for years, this time around, the Congress is talking about phasing out federal price supports altogether and replacing them with fixed payments declining over a seven year period. Each morning before daybreak, Simmons meets with his two sons and son-in-law for coffee to discuss what needs to be done on their family farm. Simmons thinks it would be great if the federal government would get out of his life but at the same time he sees the need for federal programs.

L. P. SIMMONS: Well, I guess we need to keep the price stabilized, and it also keeps production down. I thought maybe one of the days there were going to be such a few amount of farmers they would get together and regulate theirselves, but you can't do it if, if it looks like something is going to be good, price is going to be good, it's just we're greedy enough that we want all that we can get.

MS. BOWSER: How much help do you need from the government along with luck?

L. P. SIMMONS: Sometimes I think the government's more of a deterrent than it is a help. But--

MS. BOWSER: How so? How so?

L. P. SIMMONS: We have to go to school to get license to do things that we've been doing for 50 years.

MS. BOWSER: Like what?

L. P. SIMMONS: Well, to apply insecticide. They have a film that we have to go to, we have to get so many hours of school each year, and in this film it shows you have to wash your hands and things that you learned as a child. To me, it's an insult. I've been doing this for 50 years and never had anybody poisoned. I think you're a farmer because you want to be independent, and that kind of aggravates you because you're not independent too. You are dependent on someone else.

MS. BOWSER: Mike England has a much smaller operation than Simmons, but he's equally divided on having the government involved in his farm.

MIKE ENGLAND: [talking to little boy brushing horse] He likes that, doesn't he?

MIKE ENGLAND, Farmer: I hate to see the government involved in my business every day. Sometimes we feel like a puppet on a string being danced around, telling us what we can plant, where we can plant it, and how many acres and what day it's got to be destroyed and planted by. The paper work is mounting. It almost takes a full- time secretary in order to keep up with it all.

MS. BOWSER: Tudor Uhlhorn has a full-time secretary at his office downtown. With an MBA from Southern Methodist University, he is very much a farmer for the '90s. From this command post, Uhlhorn mans three cellular phones, a two-way radio system to communicate with field crews, and a desk full of computers with up-to-the- minute weather information.

TUDOR UHLHORN, Farmer: There's no mom and pop farming sitting in a farm house on the hilltop farming 250 acres anymore, living the rural way of life that most Americans look to preserve as sort of a home base for the United States, sort of our roots.

MS. BOWSER: One of the crops Uhlhorn grows is sugar cane. Congress has traditionally protected it by putting quotas on imports, a policy critics say keeps sugar prices for consumers artificially high. But farmers like Uhlhorn argue if the government pulls out of the sugar industry, it will put American growers out of business.

TUDOR UHLHORN: I can do everything exactly right and in 15 minutes in a hail storm I'm gone, everything that we've produced in that year can be destroyed. I try to give the example if somebody's producing semiconductors all year long and they don't get to sell 'em but during two weeks of the year and they have to storm 'em in a warehouse with no roof, if it rains during the time they're shipping their semiconductors out that they built all year, they lose all of their semiconductor crop. And when you put it in a perspective like that, most businesses don't have to deal with that kind of risk and most businesses don't have to deal with foreign competition, foreign subsidy like we do.

MS. BOWSER: Uhlhorn doesn't want to lose his government subsidies. He's also convinced he will never lose the government regulations either.

TUDOR UHLHORN: That's a fantasy that I'm going to have no intervention from the government. They're always going to be involved in what we do from a water quality and environmental standpoint. They've gotten so far in there now that to think that they're going to give that up is unrealistic.

MS. BOWSER: Farmers like Mike England have already started their planting in the Rio Grande Valley. Usually by now, Congress has signed off on its farm programs that tell farmers what to plant, how much, and what the target price will be. But this year, the farm program has been tied up in Congress.

MIKE ENGLAND: Here we are into our crop year already, already planting here, and they still don't have a farm program for us.

MS. BOWSER: Does that make you uneasy? Does it give you a real nasty sense of uncertainty?

MIKE ENGLAND: Not so much uncertainty as made. Everything I've got to do I've got to plan ahead for. Most of those people that are working on that farm program don't have anybody to answer to. They can work on it. Right now it'll be into March before--the closest time will be in March sometime that we even have a chance to get a farm program. Well, my crops are already planted by that time.

SPOKESMAN: Listen up, Mr. and Mrs. American farmer--

MS. BOWSER: This afternoon, the House of Representatives began debating that same farm bill England is complaining about. A Senate version passed earlier this month. President Clinton has not said whether he will veto the legislation again, as he did in December. FOCUS - UNPLUGGED

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, dialing cyberspace. Margaret Warner has that story.

MS. WARNER: The world of cyberspace is coming a little closer to home. That at least is the intention of telecommunications giant AT&T. At a New York press conference yesterday, the company announced that beginning next month, it will offer AT&T's residential customers five hours of free Internet access each month for one year. And for heavier Internet browsers, AT&T has another plan, unlimited Internet access for less than $20.00 a month. The question for AT&T and others is whether this familiar and friendly corporate face will entice millions of new people on-line. To explore that question, we're joined from San Francisco by Halsey Minor, the founder and CEO of C/Net, an on-line magazine that reports on the Internet. Welcome, Mr. Minor. Tell me, why is AT&T making an offer like this? Mr. Minor, can you hear me? [no audio] I think we're having a little audio trouble. [no audio] Mr. Minor, we'll be with you in just one moment. Let me just explain to our viewers, we are now redialing, trying to get in touch with Mr. Minor, and I think we'll be connected in just a minute. [pause] Good. Mr. Minor, thanks for being with us. Let me start with the question I originally started with you--asking you--is, why is AT&T making an offer like this?

HALSEY MINOR, C/Net: [San Francisco] Well, I think they've realized that being in the on-line service business is extremely important to them as a telecommunications provider. I think you typically as a consumer associate telecommunications with AT&T. I think it's a perfect fit with who they are as a company, and I think part of the reason they're making an offer is they're a little bit late getting into the game, and I think they wanted to make sure that they become a very big player very quickly.

MS. WARNER: I want to turn to the consumer end but first let me ask you just to describe very briefly for our audience, what is the Internet?

MR. MINOR: The Internet is really sort of no different than the telephone network, except rather than carrying voice traffic, it actually carries pictures and graphics and text and audio and even video. The other difference is rather than connecting with a telephone, you actually connect with your, with your computer. The part of the Internet that people hear the most about, other than electronic mail, is actually the World Wide Web, and that is a service on the Internet which allows consumers to connect with other companies with video, audio, things like that.

MS. WARNER: All right. Let's look at this now from the consumer's point of view. Do you think that AT&T offering this service will bring in a lot of new customers who have been either uninterested or maybe even intimidated by the Internet in the past?

MR. MINOR: Absolutely. I mean, I personally, without sort of over-hyping this, I believe that this is probably one of the most important announcements since the actual formation of Netscape. What has happened is one of the largest companies in the world and one of the largest telecommunications players and also one of the most trusted brands has just said that the Internet is safe, that we're making the Internet convenient, and that the Internet is important, and they're doing it by--and they're doing it under the guise of operating a completely free service to the consumer. So I think that's very important. I think the fact that AT&T is guaranteeing, for instance, that anyone using their credit card making a purchase on the Internet doesn't have to worry and I think they're also making software available that helps parents protect their kid from certain web sites. I think it's going to alleviate a lot of concerns that people have about the Internet.

MS. WARNER: It's not unlike the philosophy the telephone company used, what, some 70 years ago, which was to try to get everybody hooked up by making basic service very cheap. Would you agree?

MR. MINOR: Well, I would say definitely, and, you know, people have been saying for a long time that the power of the network is the square of the number of people who come onto it, and obviously, it gets more and more powerful as more and more people are there, and you know that if you send electronic mail to somebody that they will, in fact, be on the network. I don't think in the annals of telecommunications that anyone has ever rolled out service and priced it for no money.

MS. WARNER: For free.

MR. MINOR: And I think, you know, that's a new business model. I mean, Netscape did that, and it was a master stroke.

MS. WARNER: Explain briefly who Netscape is.

MR. MINOR: Netscape is the leading producer of a browser which actually connects people to the Internet.

MS. WARNER: To the World Wide Web.

MR. MINOR: Yeah. It's actually--if the telephone is the way that you hear people over the phone system, Netscape is the way you see things on the Internet. And their business model is essentially to give the product away and get some people like corporations to pay for it.

MS. WARNER: All right. Let's introduce a little skepticism or caution here. How many people really now are on the Internet?

MR. MINOR: Well, you know, there are a lot of different numbers. Nielsen, for instance, said that they believe that there are as many as 30 million people domestically who are on the Internet. There are a lot of people who don't believe that number and believe it's more in the range of say ten to fifteen million. I personally believe that 30 million is probably high. I do believe that the number of people who are coming on is growing very, very rapidly, and we can see it in the number of people who access our services on the Internet. And I also believe that with this announcement, with AT&T offering free access, there are going to be a lot more people a lot sooner.

MS. WARNER: And how much is AT&T going to have to invest financially to get this going?

MR. MINOR: Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, their strategy is to roll this service out for free to their current long distance subscribers. The idea is that if you have--if you have Internet access through AT&T, which means that you have an AT&T mailbox, et cetera, so I would be Halsey@AT&T.Com, for instance, but it's going to make it a lot harder for people to switch carriers. So if they can, if they can not have--if they don't have to spend as much money to actually advertise, to basically keep the same amount of market share, they can spend a tremendous amount of money.

MS. WARNER: You're talking about their long distance customers; it helps them hold onto those.

MR. MINOR: Absolutely. I mean, the whole idea is the notion of stickiness, that if I'm a long distance customer and I had AT&T's Internet access service, I'm less likely to switch over to MCI.

MS. WARNER: And finally quickly, before we go, there are a lot of other companies out there like America On Line, CompuServe, who have been offering Internet access. What does this do to them? Can they compete?

MR. MINOR: Well, I think it cuts two ways. I mean, first, when somebody's offering something for free and it's going to be like AT&T, clearly that's a major competitive threat. The good news, however, is that AT&T has just come in and endorsed the Internet, and that's a good thing.

MS. WARNER: Mr. Minor, thanks for being with us. I'm sorry for our technical difficulties. Thanks again. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, Steve Forbes and Bob Dole celebrated primary victories. Forbes won yesterday's big one in Arizona. Dole won North and South Dakota. The Commerce Department reported the U.S. trade deficit for 1995 was $111 billion, and the governments of Britain and Ireland said June 10th for starting Northern Ireland peace talks. An editor's note before we go: We had planned to run a Pat Buchanan stump speech tonight, but we had some technical problems, as we had earlier in the segment we just finished, but we'll have a stump speech tomorrow night instead, and we'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.