These periodic ramblings are written, produced and directed by Ronald Dale Karr, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Obviously, the opinions expressed here are my own, not those of the University.
After the debate it’s all over for BOB DOLE. At these contests it’s less important what you say than how you say it. We remember NIXON'S savage nervousness and his 5 o’clock shadow in 1960 that made everyone squirm; FORD'S Polish joke in 1976 that had us wondering if he really could walk and chew gum at the same time; REAGAN'S “there you go again” as CARTER sputtered in 1980; DUKAKIS'S icy demeanor in 1988; and BUSH'S lack of awareness of the nation beyond the country club in 1992.This time Dole looked like a man who’d rather be having a root canal. Worst of all was the ghastly echo of Nixon: not the hatchet-man or Tricky Dick, but the self-pitying small-town kid whose mother was a saint and whose old man never had much, who had to work for every dollar he had, who never had the easy life, who will never give back Checkers.
Dole’s terrible dilemma is that a fundamental rule of politics says that when you’re running behind against a popular incumbent, you must attack, attack, attack. Dole should have been slashing into Clinton’s weaknesses: Clinton’s draft-dodging and pot-smoking, etc. (Problem: all of these were long ago, and the voters’ attention span is short). Unfortunately, attack brings out the very traits the public likes least in Dole, namely, his reputation as a negative, vicious politician.
Dole’s only hope was to go for broke, drop back and throw the long bomb. Instead of taking risks, he played it safe. Hope you enjoy retirement, Bob.
sits Bill Clinton. Struggling to repress a smirk, the President looked like the man who swallowed the canary. For one whose accomplishments in office, to say the least, are minimal Clinton was cocky, even boastful.
the great historian Richard Hofstadter in his American Political Tradition reminded us
of the innumerable presidential campaigns in which the area of agreement was so large and the area of disagreement so small that significant issues could never be found! Above and beyond temporary and local conflicts there has been a common ground, a unity of cultural and political tradition, upon which American civilization has stood. That culture has been intensely nationalistic and for the most part isolationist; it has been fiercely individualistic and capitalistic.Hofstadter also observed that
Societies that are in such good working order have a kind of mute organic consistency. They do not foster ideas that are hostile to their fundamental working arrangements. Such ideas may appear, but they are slowly and persistently insulated, as an oyster deposits nacre around an irritant. They are confined to small groups of dissenters and alienated intellectuals, and except in revolutionary times they do not circulate among practical politicians. The range of ideas, therefore, which practical politicians can conveniently believe in is normally limited by the climate of opinion that sustains their culture. They differ, sometimes bitterly, over current issues, but they also share a general framework of ideas which makes it possible for them to co-operate when the campaigns are over.Today we call this fighting for the center. Sounds like he was watching the debates!
President CLEVELAND was finishing his final term in the White House. A comparison between GROVER THE GOOD and SLICK WILLY shows how far we’ve come in a century. To be sure, there were similarities. Both men were conservative Democrats, former governors, well-fed lawyers who kept their policies closely in tune with Wall Street. But there were major differences: Cleveland ordered troops to smash strikes; Clinton tosses welfare mothers to the wolves. Cleveland kept the country wedded to the gold standard to stave off inflation; Clinton allows the Fed to keep the economy stagnant--to stave off inflation. Cleveland ... hey, maybe we haven’t come that far!
Ronald Dale Karr
karr@libvax.uml.edu
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