Forbes Rises in the Polls on Wave of TV Advertising : Politics: The millionaire's media blitz, flat-tax message have made him the No. 2 GOP candidate in key states.

By MARIA L. La GANGA

Dec. 10, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Some days here in New Hampshire’s Queen City, it feels like only one man is running for president--a millionaire with a loopy grin and eyes that stare, unblinking, from the television set.

It’s 7:01 a.m. Tuesday, the kids are eating breakfast, and “I say scrap the tax code,” intones Malcolm S. Forbes Jr., a.k.a. Steve. “Put in a low flat tax. It’s simple, it’s honest--and that’s a big change for Washington.”

Twenty-nine minutes later and there he is again, slamming that tax code: “I’m Steve Forbes. If you take away the tax code, you take away the power of the Washington politicians.”

And again at 8:45 and 12:10 and 12:25. There he is at 5:30 in the evening; tax code, tax code, tax code.

Now it’s 5:55, dinner is cooking, and the (so far) wealthiest man running for president finally gives you a breather. Scrap scrapping the tax code; it’s time for “Bio/Vision.” Voice over: “He’s been called a champion of economic growth and a visionary. He is Steve Forbes.”

But you knew that already.

In New Hampshire and Iowa, Forbes is on “television more than Dionne Warwick and the Psychic Network,” says Tom Rath, senior advisor to former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, who is also vying to become the Republican nominee. “It’s kind of like being stalked.”

But it’s working. At least for now. Two months ago Forbes, 48, was a magazine publishing magnate, the sort-of-famous son of a more-famous father, a surprise presidential aspirant who had never before sought office and had no obvious base of support. Today, several polls show he has blown past a crowded field of more experienced competitors to rank behind the front-runner, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, in the race for the GOP crown.

One of those polls also found that Forbes’ flat-tax message is a voter favorite. While no one knows if his advertising-induced popularity will last, he has already changed the dynamics of the race for the nomination--in the short term, very likely to Dole’s advantage.

Still, two key questions stalk Forbes on the campaign trail. Once they tire of the advertisements, will voters tire of the candidate? And once they become more fully aware of the possible implications of the flat tax, will its allure fade?

“He has a very popular message, but we haven’t gotten into the debate that explains the revenue shortfall [that some predict would result] and who will be most disadvantaged” by a flat tax, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, author of “Packaging the President” and dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.

Forbes, of course, contends that only positives will result from sweeping away the tax code, which he likes to describe as 7 million words and “a true dead weight on American life.” Replacing it with a 17% across-the-board tax rate (structured to allow a family of four making $36,000 or less a year to pay not a dime to the federal government), would spur economic growth, he says. Even if, as many experts claim, some middle-class families could end up with higher tax bills after losing deductions for mortgage interest, they would benefit from the economy’s overall improvement, he insists.

The ad barrage touting his plan has paid off not only in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Feb. 20, but in such other early-contest states as Iowa and Arizona.

Last week, a poll released by the Des Moines Register of likely participants in Iowa’s Feb. 12 caucuses placed Forbes in the No. 2 spot. To be sure, Dole retained a commanding lead--41% of the respondents said they would vote for him. But Forbes came in with 12%, while Texas Sen. Phil Gramm’s support dropped to 9%, from 18% in September.

And in Arizona, site of a Feb. 27 primary, Forbes’ campaign manager, Bill Dal Col, said: “Our internal polls . . . have Dole at 33%, us at 31%, Gramm at 10%.”

Even if he cannot win the GOP nomination--which remains the prevailing wisdom among pundits--the man with the deep pockets has had the greatest impact on the GOP race since retired Gen. Colin L. Powell decamped on Nov. 8.

In New Hampshire, for instance, his saturation ad campaign has shut most of the other candidates “out of the discussion,” said David Carney, a senior Dole advisor. That causes glee within the Dole camp because it reduces the opportunities for such rivals as Gramm, conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan and Alexander to make inroads against the front-runner.

“Lamar was in the state [Dec 2]. It wasn’t on TV or the radio,” Carney noted. “Gramm’s numbers were cut in half in Iowa. It’s Forbes’ race now. That’s not unfair. That’s life.”

Beyond a simple hogging of the airwaves, Forbes contends that he is shaping the campaign’s debate. Dole and Gramm, he says, are responding to his message in their own ads, and Alexander is “even using my words--growth and opportunity.”

Now, most men who aspire to the nation’s highest office use those words on a regular basis. However, a recent poll in New Hampshire supported Forbes’ assessment of his impact. The late-October survey not only placed him second to Dole but found he was mentioned in terms of his position on issues more than any other candidate. An analysis of the poll added that “an overwhelming percentage of voters [voiced] something positive about Forbes’ flat-tax proposal.”

The money the Forbes campaign has spent to achieve such impact since he threw his hat in the ring Sept. 22 sparks envy among other campaigns.

Rath, Alexander’s aide, pegs Forbes’ ad spending at $80,000 per week. That figure makes Forbes campaign manager Dal Col snort. “You couldn’t spend $80,000 a week in New Hampshire,” he said.

Forbes ratchets that weekly figure down to an estimated $49,000 per week--which still leaves his competitors’ advertising budgets in the dust. “We call Forbes the Procter & Gamble of political advertising,” said James Courtovich, a senior advisor to Gramm.

The other major GOP candidates are constrained by federally imposed caps on contributions and spending in their costly bids for the Oval Office.

Forbes, in contrast, has declined to apply for federal matching campaign funds and is largely bankrolling his bid from his personal fortune. That means he can spend what he wants, when he wants.

For those candidates accepting federal funding, the accompanying rules limit primary spending state-to-state. In Iowa, the cap per candidate is $1.1 million; in New Hampshire, $600,000. The complicated formula used to determine which expenses fall under that cap generally allows candidates a certain amount of freedom. But not as much as Forbes has.

He also has been aided by a static-free environment for his flat-tax message. Unlike Dole, who is under the gun daily on issues from U.S. involvement in Bosnia to balancing the federal budget, Forbes is accountable to no one. He holds no office, implements no policy decisions, makes no unpopular public compromises. He has not yet been taken seriously enough for his competitors or the press to pick apart either the message or the man.

Meanwhile, the simplicity of his flat-tax message continues to win admirers on the campaign trail--particularly in the libertarian-leaning “Live Free or Die” state.

“I like his message,” said Brian Taylor, 39, a self-proclaimed “regular New Hampshire guy” out recently to press some political flesh at Manchester’s Holiday Presidential Convention and Charity Raffle. “I like his tax idea. It’s fair. I don’t think the system is fair right now.”

But is that flat tax really fair? That question--along with the even more fundamental one of how it works--dogged Forbes last week as he visited New Hampshire’s Christmas-card villages as a sort of itinerant economics professor, with his long answers and odd statistics.

It began Wednesday at public radio station WEVO, where he lectured briefly on a talk show called The Exchange and then took calls like this one from Christa in Concord: “The proposed flat tax of 17%--what makes you think this is enough, and what makes you think that it wouldn’t rise like the income tax?”

Forbes sought to assure Christa that he anticipates the rate could be lowered as the economy takes off in response to the new tax system.

On to Hanover, home to Dartmouth College, for a Rotary Club buffet luncheon that started with prayer and ended with mild perplexity from an audience member: How does a flat tax fit with a balanced budget?

Forbes responded: “When you reduce tax rates in America, you end up with more government revenues.”

The questions continued at an evening reception at The Tavern of the venerable Hanover Inn, where the indefatigable candidate gave his most detailed account of the mechanics of a flat tax to more than 100 affluent, largely retired, parka-wearing Dartmouth alums.

While there was great interest in the candidate himself, his explanation seemed to fall flatter than the flat tax itself. “It sounds most interesting,” said Nancy Elliott, 71. “But I’m not technical enough to know if it’s going to work.”

If aspects of his flat tax remained mysterious, the other views he voiced on this campaign swing were far clearer. On school prayer, he supports a moment of voluntary silence. He does not believe in affirmative action and does not have a written policy in place at Forbes Inc. “I believe in opportunity; I don’t believe in quotas.”

He opposed California’s Proposition 187, last year’s anti-illegal immigration ballot measure. There shouldn’t be illegal immigrants in America, he says, but as long as there are, “I’d rather have the kids in the schools than roaming the streets.”

On abortion he says, “I am not pro-choice at all,” but he’s the closest thing to it left in the Republican race. That’s because he does not favor a flat-out ban on abortions, though he stresses he would outlaw them in late pregnancy, barring emergencies, and would oppose public funding for abortions under any circumstance.

It is on such social issues that Forbes could run into trouble among GOP voters. He did at Dartmouth College, where he was interviewed by staff members of the conservative weekly, the Dartmouth Review.

Davis Brewer, editor in chief, is currently torn between Forbes and Buchanan. He likes both of their economic positions but finds Forbes “lacking on the social issues.”

“Buchanan sees something needs to be done rather extremely about our social problems,” said Brewer, 22. “Forbes seems content to brush it aside.”