CAMPAIGN '96: KNOCK 'EM FLAT

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Some Kemp followers were still a bit leery of falling in line behind Forbes instead. It was hard to make the leap from a former football star who seemed to genuinely care about the plight of inner-city families to an heir of a publishing fortune who had never run for office before. Forbes added a wrench when he resisted making himself part of the sale. He allowed a team of consultants to film him at work and on the road but balked at making his quite happy-looking family (his wife and five daughters) part of the portrait. The barrier spooked his handlers: here was this admittedly rich but fairly normal guy at home with his pets and his station wagon with more than a 100,000 miles on it who was bound to be portrayed as the capitalists' tool unless they offered an alternative persona.

Forbes' wife Sabina is supportive but reluctant to plunge into the limelight. (He met her at a debutante party in 1970 while he was at Princeton. He offered her a cigar; she accepted, and five weeks later they were engaged.) And her hesitation may seem all the more understandable now that Forbes has earned the stature to be eviscerated by his opponents and the press. His refusal to make public his tax returns is bound to fuel charges that he has something to hide (last week Dole preemptively released nearly 30 years' worth of tax returns)--like how much he would stand to gain personally from his tax scheme. Focus groups by rival campaigns find that Forbes' TV ads have given him high name recognition and a high approval rating, but closer questioning shows that many voters don't know his plan would scrap the deduction for mortgage interest and charitable contributions, while exempting all income from interest, dividends and capital gains. The more people learn about his flat tax, said a campaign manager, the less they like it.

Already rival conservatives are challenging his rather libertarian positions on issues like abortion ("I want abortion to vanish," he says, but adds that "to change the law you have to change the culture, little by little. It takes persuading other people. There is no other way in a democracy"). Gramm jumped on Forbes' support for Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military, a nudge-nudge-wink-wink way of raising the rumors of his father's bisexuality. All Forbes will say on the subject is, "What Dad meant to us is great. He's not running, and I won't get into his life-style." On gay rights generally, he says, "I take a live-and-let-live approach."

The Forbes camp can feel the counterattack gathering strength. "One thing's for sure," says Dal Col, "the political structure doesn't like this. They are not happy. If Steve doesn't become President, they will reform the campaign-finance laws to make sure this doesn't happen again." By late last week polls by rival campaigns in Iowa showed Forbes' negatives climbing from 15% to 30% as the attacks hit home. For his part, Forbes claims to be having a great time. But, he says, "it's like the old frog story. Sometimes you're getting boiled real good, and you don't know you're dead till you are."

--Reported by Michael Duffy/Washington, Michael Kramer with Forbes and Tamala M. Edwards/Sioux City, with other bureaus