by Curt Smith
According to A. C. Nielsen Co., Buchanan’s August 17 speech reached nearly 20 million viewers. Ronald Reagan followed. “Whatever else history may say of me when I’m gone,” he said, “I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts.” It has. Twenty-two million viewers saw the last major address of the Gipper’s incomparable career: How many would watch Bush’s Thursday, August 20, acceptance—and how would the speech affect his campaign?
I penned that morning’s prayer breakfast text at the University of Houston. The pre-acceptance speech reviewed America’s religious history, how Communism’s fall in Eastern Europe “had at last let people wish Merry Christmas to each other without fear of being labeled religious” and how “one of God’s great soldiers, Billy Graham, had returned from there six years earlier predicting that freedom would outlast tyranny.”
At the time many shook their heads—but Graham knew “something they didn’t. He knew the chains of oppression forged by men were no match for the keys to salvation forged by God,” said Bush, adding that he asked Billy and wife Ruth to stay at the White House the night before the troops started Desert Storm. “I thought a lot that night. About the thousands of people praying in churches,” Bush said. “About my home church—St. Martin’s—its prayer book, crosses, and handmade Christmas cards made in Sunday school for our troops in the Gulf.”
Bush thought about the troops themselves—“the finest sons and daughters any nation could ever have”—and how blessed he and Mrs. Bush were to have the Grahams as longtime friends. In 1992 he counted how between them the families had ten children and thirty-two grandchildren. “Now, that’s the kind of expansion that would make even the federal bureaucracy jealous!” he told the crowd.
Bush’s acceptance speech, a pastiche of cheer line, foreign policy review, second-term domestic preview, and attack on Clinton, was, like the State of the Union, a committee job. About 34 million people watched—most of the convention. Bush, however, got only a two-point bounce, Clinton leading, 51–36 percent, with time running out. The GOP was more in need of prayer than ever.
Churchill said of a prosaic desert, “This pudding has no theme!” Republicans left the convention still looking for theirs. Trouble was fourfold. According to CBS / New York Times, a 53–38 percent majority disapproved of Bush’s job performance. Worse, said Bob Teeter, the electorate had changed since 1988 to the Democrats’ advantage, composed of 27 percent Bush Republican, 17 percent swing GOP, 15 percent anti-GOP, and 37 percent anti-Bush Democrat. Third, the GOP National Committee regularly asked people if America was on the right or wrong track. When Bush took office, respondents said right track, 53–37 percent. Wrong now romped, 80–16. Fourth, in 1989–90 most defined Bush as “takes firm stands . . . caring very well . . . likeable . . . competent . . . strong.” A majority now said “changes his mind too much . . . uncaring . . . not likeable . . . not competent . . . weak.” They could have been—were—describing two different people.
Desperate, most Republicans favored one of two schools for the campaign’s last ten weeks. One was to make Clinton the issue, like McGovern in 1972 and Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis in 1980, 1984, and 1988, respectively. It was possible, despite the polls. The second strategy was for Republicans to show they were as tolerant as Democrats—an approach 180 degrees different from that of the prior quarter century. The two strategies were, if not exclusive, extremely hard to mesh. In the end, exhausted, you gravitated one way or the other.
The first strategy portrayed the Clintons as the embodiment of DC consultants, lawyers, lobbyists, and what USA Today termed “ex-’60s, longhaired, anti-war McGovern-Democrat liberal types.” They were “educated at some of the world’s most elite universities,” wrote the Post, correctly and parochially. According to the GOP, they fancied themselves as tastemakers, a moral dilemma whether to eat at Dominique’s or The Palm. By contrast, Reagan aide Lynn Nofziger, surveying a Republican crowd, once heard a capital reporter say that it seemed rather dowdy. “Yep, that’s us,” Nofziger chortled. “The dowdy middle class.” Its view toward elitism would embronze us vs. them, a strategy which had prevailed over Democrats since Spiro Agnew coined an “effete corps of impudent snobs.”
The second strategy was newer—thus, less secure. Buchanan’s Monday speech had torn up the GOP elite’s pea patch—too divisive. The media went ballistic—though polling put Bush closer to Clinton on that night than on any other day of convention week. The result was a Republican emphasis on tolerance that lasted through October. Some found it a Caspar Milquetoast effort worthy of the party’s insipid mid-1970s slogan, “Republicans Are People, Too.” Bush disagreed, deciding to talk about tolerance, since he found inclusion right and smart. On September 11 he spoke in Virginia Beach, Virginia—home of the Revered Pat Robertson, a key member of the religious Right:
Intolerance is not a word stamped “Liberals only.” Too often we conservatives have not been vigilant—but overzealous—forgetting why America was founded—to bring in, not drive away. Too often our politics have been of the closed door. So sometimes we forget how God asks us to hate the sin—but, yes, to love the sinner.
As conservatives we should ask ourselves: How can we condone homosexual- and lesbian-bashing, the burning of abortion clinics, the smearing of non-Americans as un-American? Have we not endorsed the view—even accidentally—that since only our way is good—others must be bad?
When God looks down from Heaven, He does not divide black from white, rural from urban, stay-at-home mothers from single mothers. He says—as we must: “All are welcome at my table.”
When we sing the song “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” we don’t mean just those who are affluent or who have two parents, we mean all the children in the world. Each is precious in His sight.
Barbara and I had six kids—one died, five are living. I believe all are precious—just as all Americans will be welcome at the table as long as I am president. I believe too, that different means neither better nor worse.
In the only election that really counts, God won’t ask, “Were you English-speaking? Were you ‘foreign’?”—whatever that means. He won’t ask, “Were you—quote, unquote—‘successful’?”
Instead, God will ask, “Were we kind? Were we selfless? Did we lend a hand—believe in prayer, and keep God’s faith? Did we truly live—did we try to live—a good and honest life?”
The president closed with a story about a man who had tried—“a man of God,” he said. Like his father and grandfather, he was a Baptist preacher and “had dedicated his life to the church.” Then, in 1982 his wife became infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from a blood transfusion during pregnancy. She died in 1991, at thirty-eight, at their home in Dallas. Their youngest child died too. Their first son, ten, also with HIV, had survived. “But, you know,” said Bush, “I wonder if decency has.”
The president told how when some found that the minister’s wife had HIV, they began avoiding him. Five times he and his family were discouraged from attending Baptist churches. In the end he was asked—told—to leave the ministry. Today, Bush continued, “He works on the National Commission on AIDS. Recalls his wife. Tries to sort out his life. Thinks about what he was taught in Divinity School: ‘God will bless your life if you believe in him.’” The truth, said Bush, “is that God didn’t decide to shun this man. We did—you and me. Too often we have forgot that our fate is indivisible.”
Bush might have had a powerful argument—“Be a light unto the world”—notably with born-again blacks, Hispanics, and evangelicals. However, little time remained, the economy was still seen as sick, messages were still muddled, and Bush was still deemed “out of touch” as he tried to solidify his base—too many “stills” seven weeks before the election.
In Texas the president told a conservative briefing: “I am pleased to be at this Woodstock for conservatives. I don’t think there’s been so much conservative passion in o
ne room since the last time Pat Buchanan played solitaire.” In California Bush noted why Calvin Coolidge was Ronald Reagan’s favorite president: “‘The American people aren’t overtaxed,’ he said. ‘The government in Washington is overfed.’” In DC the Bush speech staff endured a final makeover. Desperate, the president got Secretary of State James Baker to return as White House chief of staff. In turn, Baker brought aides Margaret Tutwiler and Robert Zoellick to head communications, demoting Provost to chief speechwriter.
On October 1 Perot, seeming as confused as Bush staff personnel, reannounced as a candidate six weeks after having withdrawn. In Gallup’s last poll before Perot’s reentry, Clinton had led Bush, 50–40 percent. Clinton now had 49 percent, Bush 34 percent, Perot 7 percent. Two facts helped the on-and-off-again Texan rise. One was the Bush campaign’s leisurely DC rhythm. Writers often had little weekend company in the White House as the calendar turned to fall. On Fifteenth Street Bush campaign offices evoked March 15, 1991, as much as October 15, 1992; little sense of crisis loomed. Moreover, Perot had a fortune to spend on media and was quite glad to spend it—$12.3 million on infomercials, including an ad with 10.5 million viewers. Buying his way back into the race ultimately gave Perot the highest percent of the vote ever for a candidate sans any electoral votes. It also made him the only third-party candidate ever allowed to debate both major party nominees.
Bush pollster Fred Steeper curiously welcomed Perot’s reentry: “He’ll be important if we accomplish our goal, which is to draw even with Clinton.” That meant that Bush must clear the last preelection hurdle—three ninety-minute debates vs. Clinton and Perot: October 11 in St. Louis; 15, Richmond; and 19, East Lansing, Michigan. They were the first debates in which three presidential nominees shared a single stage and to include one “town-hall meeting,” letting voters ask questions.
An October 13 vice presidential debate also matched Quayle, Gore, and Perot’s running mate, former admiral James Stockdale, the highest-ranking naval officer held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. We recall chiefly Stockdale’s opening: “Who am I? Why am I here?” Tuning out, many viewers’ first impression of the admiral was also their last.
Behind by double digits, the president hoped at the first debate to knock the Democrat out. Instead, he left barely standing—and his strategy aground. In the late 1960s, Clinton had been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. Early in the debate Bush assailed him for organizing Vietnam War demonstrations “against” his “own country on foreign land [London] . . . when young men are held prisoner in Hanoi or kids out of the ghetto were drafted. . . . It’s not a question of patriotism, it’s a question of character and judgment.”
Expecting the assault, Clinton gave a rehearsed response—to me, reckless and rock-bottom: “When Joe McCarthy went around this country attacking people’s patriotism, he was wrong . . . and a senator from Connecticut stood up to him, named Prescott Bush. . . . Your father was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy. You were wrong to attack my patriotism. I was opposed to the war, but I love my country.”
Superficially glib, Clinton’s technique of using a rival’s family member was inexcusable. Bush should have said, “What kind of man are you to invoke my father’s name? My father knew men like you who talk a good game but can’t do the job—and he had contempt for every one. All you do is use people as props: my father, the country, our citizens. Governor, they are not props—they are Americans. You say I attack your patriotism. A transcript of what I’ve just said will show that’s untrue. I question your character and judgment,” the president might have said. “Anyone who attacks America abroad isn’t fit to lead America at home. Anyone who ‘loathes’ America’s military isn’t fit to be its commander in chief.”
Instead, Bush’s rebuttal began: “I have to correct one thing. I didn’t question the man’s patriotism,” only character. “What he did in Moscow [Clinton visited there as a student], that’s fine. Let him explain it. He did it. I accept that. What I don’t accept is demonstrating and organizing demonstrations in a foreign country when your country’s at war. I’m sorry. I cannot accept that.” Would America? A CNN / USA Today poll found 47 percent of those watching named Perot the victor; 30, Clinton; and 16, Poppy. A harsher Bush counterattack might have changed those numbers, “soft on defense” having clubbed the Dems at least since 1968.
Four days later the candidates spurned the traditional lectern format for an October 15 “town hall”—the first presidential debate with stools and an open stage, surrounded on three sides by the audience, the crowd and moderator asking questions. This debate came closest to being stacked. First, the issues were domestic only—Clinton’s sweet spot. Second, the debate moderator, ABC News’s Carole Simpson, took the subject of “character” off the table—no questions on it would be allowed. Like CNN’s Candy Crowley in a similar 2012 tussle, she seemed to be auditioning for a future role as a Democratic Heidi Fleiss.
In one memorable vignette, Bush was seen checking his watch, as if like Nixon in 1960, he couldn’t wait for the debate to end. In another, the candidates were asked about the national debt’s effect on them personally. Bush replied haltingly, saying, “I’m not sure I get it. Help me with the question, and I’ll try and answer it.” Perot asked anecdotally how many Americans would be able, as he had, “to live the American Dream.” Clinton replied effectively, saying that as governor of Arkansas in 1979–81 and 1983–92, “I have seen what’s happened in this last four years when—in my state, when people lose their jobs there’s a good chance I’ll know them by their names.” America, he rued, had not reinvested in its people.
Politically, Clinton could not advertise America’s longest peacetime prosperity under Presidents Reagan and Bush; as Lyndon Johnson said, “If you have a one-eyed grandmother, you don’t put her in the living room.” So he mourned, “We’ve gone from first to twelfth in the world in wages. Most people are working harder for less money than they were making ten years ago.” Clinton said he would use government to do only what it could do—stimulate the economy while cutting the deficit by 50 percent by 1996. (In 2000 George W. Bush called such facts and figures Al Gore’s “fuzzy math.”)
The CNN / USA Today poll showed a Clinton second-presidentialdebate rout: 58 percent chose him vs. Bush’s 16 and Perot’s 15 percent. Time slip-sliding away, Election Day stalked the White House. It was a place especially precious on the weekend, when I could walk through the Rose Garden, by the Oval Office, or through the East Wing and other sites where the official portraits of each president and First Lady hung. The White House is luminous, lovely, and elegant. At this point Bush’s campaign seemed solitary, inchoate, and sad.
The last debate, on October 19 at Michigan State University in East Lansing, seemed like bumper cars crashing into one another along the boards. Using psychological projection, Perot charged the GOP with raising “dirty tricks” to a “sick art form.” Evoking malaise, Bush said that Clinton’s economic program would repeat “what it was like when we had a spending President and a spending Congress and interest rates . . . at 21.5 percent under Carter.” Clinton artfully one-upped the incumbent: “I will not raise taxes on the middle class to pay for these [his] programs . . . furthermore, I am not going to tell you to ‘read my lips.’”
Moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS asked Bush why he seemed less buccaneering in domestic policy. “We have had major accomplishments in the first term,” the president said, blaming Congress for the rest. Perot was asked if his being MIA from the race in July-August foretold a president ducking SOS decisions. “I’m here tonight, folks,” jabbed Perot, telling the public that he was not a quitter. “I’ve never quit supporting you.” Bush harpooned Clinton’s record as governor; his “being on one side of the issue one day and another on the next”; and his deception about his draft record and military service. Would anything stick?
In the end Clinton reverted to “It’s the economy, stupid” and Bush’s “No New Taxes” vow and saying that he would not be diverted by foreig
n policy. “In that first debate, Mr. Bush made some news,” Clinton recalled, by announcing that Jim Baker would oversee domestic policy. “Well, I’ll tell you,” the Democrat said. “. . . The person responsible for domestic policy in my administration will be Bill Clinton.” Bush replied smartly, “That’s what worries me.”
Like the first debate, CNN / USA Today gave the verdict to Perot: 37 percent vs. Bush’s and Clinton’s 28 apiece. Election Day lay fifteen days away. Bush could no more reverse the calendar than King Canute reverse the tide.
Through his life, when Bush has been a distinct underdog, challenged, even threatened, he has replied competitively, almost maniacally. It saved his life in 1944. In 1964 and 1970, he campaigned as a Republican when Texas Republicanism wasn’t cool. In 1970 he concocted a plan to become President Nixon’s spokesman in the Big Apple as UN ambassador. After 1980, aware that most of the Reagan inner circle mistrusted him, he made it hard for any future vice president to exceed his loyalty to the president. In 1988, behind by seventeen points, ridiculed like few presidential nominees, he ran a stinging, withering campaign. Bush was at his best when Bush was at his low-est—in that sense, he, not Clinton, was the real Comeback Kid.
Now, in the 1992 campaign’s last two weeks, he seemed everywhere, leaving it to others to abandon hope. The Republican electoral lock seemed as ancient as a daguerreotype. Clinton had New England, the industrial Northeast, the formerly GOP West Coast, and much of the Midwest in the bag. Bush had to draw Atwater’s “inside straight” but in late October was still speaking in states usually colored red. In Gainesville, Georgia, Bush said, “The scariest moment of [last night’s] debate was when Governor Clinton said he wanted to do for the United States what he’s done to Arkansas.” Spartans-burg, South Carolina: “Governor Clinton says it’s not the character of the president but the character of the presidency. They’re one and the same.” Gastonia, North Carolina: “Remember the misery index invented by the liberal Democrats, unemployment and inflation added together? It was 21 percent [under Carter]. Now it’s 10.” In every speech he called Al Gore “the Ozone Man” for his fixation with global warming. “I’ve never seen a guy with such crazy ideas.”