Senate Republicans have been debating whether to kill the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty outright or to reach an agreement with the president to take no action on the treaty until the next Congress and presidency. Some opponents of the treaty, such as Pete Domenici of New Mexico, argue that voting down the treaty would undermine confidence in American foreign policy.

Presumably our allies, or at least their policymakers, are aware of the Senate's role in ratifying treaties and that this has not historically been a rubber stamp (see Versailles, Treaty of). It would undermine confidence if our allies reached the conclusion that partisan political maneuvering rendered America incapable of constancy; but since the objections to the treaty are not narrowly political in nature, this would be the wrong conclusion for them to draw from a treaty defeat. The administration is encouraging them to draw that conclusion with its charges of partisanship. The alternative, meanwhile, is that U.S. policy remains up for grabs, which can hardly encourage confidence in our constancy.

The argument about confidence is, in truth, a rationalization for low political self-confidence: Some Republicans are worried that voting down the treaty would hurt them in the next election. That's the reason they want assurances from Clinton that he won't ask for a vote in the middle of 2000. Polls show that a large majority of Americans think it would be nice if nobody tested nukes, especially when the pollster doesn't point out the possible downsides of the treaty.

Since national security considerations point against the treaty, the polls should of course be ignored. But in this case they're not even useful for base political calculations. Everybody knows that voters don't care about foreign policy these days; it's the subject of a thousand hand-wringing columns by earnest pundits. Nobody is going to lose an election over the treaty. Supporters of the treaty have every reason to want a delay, since they would lose a vote held today. Opponents, on the other hand, have no good reason to wait. The Senate should vote this treaty down. Tonight.

Straw polls by grassroots organizations don't often reveal much about a presidential candidate's appeal. At the Alabama GOP straw poll, remember, Alan Keyes and Orrin Hatch were the top two finishers. Seen any Keyes-Hatch 2000 bumper sticker lately?

What straw polls can do, however, is reveal a weakness. The one in Iowa prompted Lamar Alexander to get out of the race, and it's hard to believe Dan Quayle would have exited, even with his fundraising problems, if he had come in, say, third place.

Pat Buchanan also had a poor showing in Iowa, but perhaps that can be explained by his late start. More difficult to justify, however, is his second-place finish in balloting at the National Federation of Republican Assemblies in Kansas City on Sunday. No candidate won an endorsement, which would have required a two-thirds majority, but Steve Forbes came close with 62 percent. Buchanan was a distant second with 38 percent.

Buchanan used to clean up at this type of event, full of heartland conservatives searching for a hero. Now he is an also-ran among their ranks, surviving on the leftover fumes of previous campaigns. As they die out, the Buchanan phenomenon will increasingly look like a thing of the past, not the future.

A bemused congressional staffer forwarded the following e-mail invitation to us last Thursday:

Today:
Fire Extinguisher Awareness Course
11:00am-2pm
Longworth Office Building Park
BBQ Lunch for all participants

Updated By:
Ramesh Ponnuru - Senior Editor
John J. Miller - National Political Reporter
Kate Dwyer - Editorial Associate