Sackcloth & Ashcroft

t's only 1997 and already Sen. John Ashcroft is making his move to become the candidate of the Christian right. A member of a Republican Congress that is otherwise putting the rank-and-file GOP to sleep, he's managed to identify with the only excitement on Capitol Hill: battling to shut down the National Endowment for the Arts; switching his position and backing Jesse Helms in his ideological fight with liberal GOPer William Weld; stopping abortion-providing HMOs in the Medicaid system; and standing out as one of the lone Senate voices against the president's national education testing plan. Is he starting too early? In a party where activists are still shivering from the Bob Dole nightmare, Sen. Ashcroft is hoping to become the presidential candidate of their dreams. | Bob Jones

Ten small American flags hang above the mantle in John Ashcroft's Senate office. Each one is framed, with a young pupil's black-and-white photo superimposed on the field of 48 stars. In the white stripes, childish handwriting spells out homey definitions of virtues such as reliability, honesty, and self-control.

The senator is obviously proud of his flag collection. He shows it off to visitors and has had the series reproduced as a collection of oversized postcards that he distributes from his office. Many Washington sophisticates would regard the penmanship lessons, distributed in the 1930s by the National Institution for Moral Instruction, as hopelessly hokey and old-fashioned. Not Sen. Ashcroft. He considers them "a reminder of the values that have been the foundation and strength of our nation."