American Notes

He may not have been the first choice -- or even the second -- but last week Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter was George Bush's final choice to become Republican national chairman and replace the ailing Lee Atwater. Ever since former drug czar William Bennett turned down the post last month, claiming it might conflict with his lucrative speechmaking and book-writing plans, the Administration has been floundering in search of an acceptable party chieftain.

Bennett had been expected to bring some peppery conservative seasoning to the 1992 campaign with an ideological offensive against racial quotas. Yeutter's selection suggests that Bush may have opted for blander fare. A former president of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and a U.S. trade representative in the Reagan Administration, Yeutter, 60, has more experience making pragmatic policy than plotting political strategy. Groused a party official: "We needed strong garlic, and we got malted milk."