BORN TO BE MILD: A RIDE ON THE FORBES BUS

By RICHARD STENGEL/AVOCA

WHEN STEVE FORBES GINGERLY STEPPED ABOARD HIS rented campaign bus in Council Bluffs, Iowa, one morning last week, a photographer yelled for him to stick his head out a side window and wave. Forbes, who wouldn't know a photo op even in a hail of popping flashbulbs, nudged his head out like a turtle afraid to emerge from its shell. He smiled bashfully, and a local reporter called out, "When was the last time you rode a bus?" Forbes grimaced, pulled his head back in and muttered, "I've ridden buses all my life."

For Forbes, the novelty of campaigning has worn off. Repetition is all. These days he doesn't give interviews; he endures them. A few months ago, he was the happy warrior on the trail; now he's a grim one, the flat-tax Terminator who repeats his lines by rote and marches relentlessly from event to event. While he has proved he has the fortitude for the race, some of the twinkle has gone out from behind those thick glasses.

Back in November, when no one was taking him very seriously, Forbes might wander off subject and discuss 19th century farming in Nigeria, the infield of the old Brooklyn Dodgers or how in 1820 Americans consumed four times more alcohol on average than they do today. Gone are the self-deprecating gibes about his family business. "I guess you can say I came to the attention of management at an early age," Forbes would say with a grin. His winning quirkiness these days is shielded by a layer of wounded suspicion. When a voter in Earlham, Iowa, asked him whether he supported same-sex marriages, Forbes reacted like he had been punched in the stomach, stuttering "...I guess you could say I'm hopelessly conventional.''

Mounted at the front of the Forbes bus is a small sign that reads WELCOME ABOARD ASPHALT ONE. COMMANDER JOHN L. "JOHNNY" WILLIAMS. Next to the sign is a small bulletin board with tacked-on Polaroids of a shirt-sleeved George Bush sitting on the bus's banquette reading the newspaper. The Bush-Quayle campaign rented the 22-year-old motor coach in 1988 and 1992. The bus itself is on the tatty side ("It has 2.4 million miles on it," boasts Commander Johnny), but Forbes doesn't seem to notice. When the bus halts outside Atlantic, Iowa, to let an endless freight train snake past, Forbes looks not at the parade of colorful boxcars but only at his watch. The atmosphere inside is more like a hushed corporate boardroom than a vehicle for Steve's Excellent Adventure. Muted conversation between the few staffers--no music, no mess, no jokes. Journalists are loaded into a small room at the back and then ushered quietly into the main cabin for interviews.

Iowa voters have seen plenty of Forbes on the small screen; now they're keen to eyeball him in the flesh. He's attracting good crowds--150 to 250 people--who mainly want to make sure that he's not as kooky as that other multimillionaire who once ran for President. His seriousness and earnestness tell them that, while his occasional sheepish grins reveal that he's not an automaton either. He has the courage of his awkwardness. In Council Bluffs, Chris Bridgeford, who owns his own construction business, listened to Forbes and said, "I was hoping to hear something more solid, and I did."

Forbes is the most unvain of men; he doesn't even bother adjusting his loosely knotted tie before speaking. His pasty, puckered complexion is untouched by the makeup other politicians routinely wear. The one concession to cosmetics is that he has started to comb his hair across his forehead in the boyish, Bobby Kennedy style beloved of presidential hopefuls.

As a campaigner Forbes has not improved much since the fall. When it comes to pressing the flesh, he doesn't shake hands in the hearty American style, but in the clammy British manner. He's still excruciatingly polite, as though he's the uninvited guest. While he speaks in a fluid, sled-hurtling-downhill style, he has something of a tin ear. At the Embers Cafe in the town of Avoca (pop. 1,497), a strapping farmer named Jim Kardell, a red bandanna round his neck, asks how the flat tax would affect young farmers. Forbes, in blue pinstripes, rattles off statistics about depreciating investments. Kardell scratches his head and says, "It's not easy for a farm boy to follow that." Forbes doesn't hear him. Like the traditional politicians he disparages, Forbes doesn't so much listen as wait for his turn to recite.