GOP NEEDS SOLID LEADER TO COMMUNICATE

The fortunes of America's political parties wax and wane, with periods of prosperity for either of them followed by long periods in the wilderness. This truism is seen most acutely when a party loses successive presidential elections.

The 20th Century has seen growth, perhaps unhealthy growth, in the power and prestige of the position of chief executive. Americans today look to that office for leadership in matters large and, increasingly, small. When a president's tenure coincides with prosperity, he gets the credit, whether deserved or not. When hard times hit, he is the first to be blamed.

It was ever thus. A party that controls Congress or a state legislature finds it difficult to compete in communicating a message when confronting a skilled communicator from the opposite party who sits in the chief executive's seat. Thus congressional Republicans have a tough time speaking with a coherent voice in the face of the empathetic Bill Clinton, master of effective, Oprah-style communications. Through most of the 1980s, congressional Democrats, though solidly in control of the House, found it similarly difficult to communicate their message against the masterful Ronald Reagan.

This is the problem confronting Republicans today. It will take imaginative political leadership of a high order to break through to the American people with a winning message. At the national level, the person best positioned to provide it is probably Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the all-but-announced GOP presidential front-runner. Bush won a landslide re-election victory last fall, gaining nearly 50 percent of the Hispanic vote in the process. That bodes well for the Spanish-speaking Bush's efforts to communicate with this key group in states such as California. In any case, enough other candidates are out there -- Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle, Pat Buchanan, Gary Bauer -- that Bush will have to earn his party's nomination in what could prove a bruising contest.