Project President

by Ben Shapiro

  Of course, the same could be said of Kennedy’s opponent. Richard Nixon was hardly an old curmudgeon—he was only forty-seven years old. He and Kennedy had entered Congress in the same year. This took the age issue off the table for Nixon; certainly Eisenhower would have had an easier time with Kennedy, whom he could have dismissed as a young pup. The question of Kennedy’s age was never posed during his four presidential debates with Nixon.

  Nixon couldn’t run on his experience, either. Though he had spent eight years as vice president and had been intimately involved in many matters of state, President Eisenhower completely undercut Nixon on the experience issue. When the press asked Eisenhower to name any major decisions in which Nixon had participated, Eisenhower snidely remarked, “If you give me a week, I might think of one.”87 Kennedy capitalized on the comment, using it in campaign commercials. During the first presidential debate, one of the moderators directly quoted Eisenhower’s statement, and another asked Nixon what major ideas he had proposed to Eisenhower. The experience issue collapsed beneath Nixon.

  Unlike Kennedy, Nixon looked bad on television. In his first debate with Kennedy, Nixon’s upper lip and forehead were covered in a sheen of sweat. His lower teeth were carnivorously visible whenever he spoke. He had a slight five o’clock shadow.Whenever Kennedy spoke, Nixon stood there, favoring one leg, constantly fidgeting.When Nixon spoke, Kennedy appeared to be taking notes. Kennedy was the younger candidate, but he seemed the more mature candidate.

  Kennedy won the 1960 election by one of the slimmest margins in electoral history. Lyndon Baines Johnson stated, “He never said a word of importance in the Senate and he never did a thing. But somehow he managed to create the image of himself as a shining intellectual, a youthful leader who would change the face of the country.”88 Tragically, Kennedy never had a chance to prove that his youth translated into political greatness. Kennedy changed the country more with his death than his presidency. Kennedy’s murder released a torrent of social rebellion against authority. His youth—cut short as it was by an assassin’s bullet—provided the center for a mass movement dedicated to remaking American morality. Kennedy’s youth was the springboard for the 1960s.

  WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON saw himself as a Southern JFK. Young—Clinton turned forty-six during the 1992 campaign—soft-spoken, friendly looking, Clinton had a zestful charm about him. “Clinton was ‘inauthentic’ but there was a self-awareness, even transparency, with his ambition and skills,” wrote campaign observers Allan Louden and Kristen McCauliff. “His appetites were part and parcel of the ambition, charm, compassion, and engagement that warranted voters’ assent. Clinton was Clinton.”89 And Clinton was a kid—“the Comeback Kid,” as he labeled himself.

  In his television commercials, Clinton ran as the leader of a “new generation of Democrats.” He repeatedly dragged out a photo of himself as a youngster meeting JFK. In his nomination acceptance speech, he made his theme the “New Covenant”; he used the word new a total of twenty-four times. He was a candidate for “change.” During his first debate with sixty-eight-year-old incumbent president George H. W. Bush and sixty-two-year-old Ross Perot, Clinton aptly summed up his campaign platform: “We need a new approach. The same old experience is not relevant.We’re living in a new world after the Cold War.”90

  Clinton echoed this theme throughout his campaign. “We don’t need to elect the last president of the twentieth century,” Clinton stated at a Florida State Democratic Convention. “We need to elect the first president of the twenty-first century.”91 He became the first presidential candidate to appear on MTV. During the appearance, he joked about his adolescent marijuana experimentation. “If you had to do it over again, would you inhale?” asked one particularly brainless audience member. “Sure, if I could,” Clinton responded, grinning.92 This highbrow witticism earned him the praise of the MTV generation. One UCLA student gushed, “Like many young Americans, I ‘met’ Bill Clinton on Tuesday night, sitting in my living room, on MTV, the music-video station better known for its coverage of pop icons than politicians. It was the highlight of the campaign so far.”93

  The media focused relentlessly on age, printing literally thousands of stories contrasting the elderly Bush with the younger and more vibrant Clinton. “The new president is nearly 23 years younger than the outgoing president, the biggest age difference by far since Dwight Eisenhower gave way to John Kennedy 32 years ago,” pointed out Jeff Greenfield of USA Today. “[I]n electing 46-year-old Bill Clinton and 44-year-old Al Gore, America has put the baby-boom generation squarely in charge of our nation’s affairs.”94 Opinion columnist William Schneider of the Los Angeles Times agreed: “What Democrats know about Clinton is that he is a smart, substantive, young, charming, experienced, attractive, moderate Southerner.”95

  “Clinton, the governor of Arkansas, is the youngest of the candidates at 45 and looks the fittest—for good reason,” said the Boston Globe.

  As a Rhodes scholar, he rowed and played basketball, and as a candidate, he jogs, plays golf and softball, and when an injury slowed his running last year, he lifted weights . . . “The perception is we’re being governed by a man of the World War II generation with no new ideas of where he wants to take us,” said [William] Schneider. “All the Democrats are trying to say, ‘We’re fresh faces, we’re young and vigorous and dynamic. George Bush is tired and old and not entirely well.’ ” 96

  The New York Times similarly drooled over Clinton:

  Addicted to card games of hearts, golf and crossword puzzles, a whiz on the tenor sax, Clinton has the look and loosey-goosey enthusiasm of a high school jock perched somewhere between eternal youth and paunchy middle age. But he also has the natural ease of a born politician—touching, hugging, making eye contact so deep that recipients sometimes seem mesmerized.Tabloid rumors aside,Clinton embodies the parallels between the seductions of politics and the seductions of sex. As one Clinton watcher said recently: “It’s not that Clinton seduces women. It’s that he seduces everyone.”97

  Still, there were many who doubted Clinton’s ability to sway the public. He was, after all, a relative baby. “You wouldn’t call Bill Clinton ‘mister,’ and you wouldn’t call Bush ‘George,’ ” explained Cokie Roberts of ABC News. And Fred Barnes, then of the New Republic, stated, “As much as a lot of reporters don’t like George Bush, they find it hard to take Bill Clinton seriously as a president.”98

  But unlike Reagan, Eisenhower, and Harrison, Bush didn’t seem lively. He didn’t embrace his age. He was seasoned and experienced, but he had a reputation as a waffler. He also came off as a curmudgeon. When he was invited to appear on MTV, Bush responded that he was too old to become a “teeny-bopper.”99 As Clinton campaign pollster Stan Greenberg said, “I think they’re looking for change. What’s important about these two candidates is their energy and youth and ability to take on the kind of changes people are looking for . . . it’s not that age is the issue, it’s a lack of energy and a lack of vision and I think that will be the contrast.”100 Bush’s age wasn’t his big liability—it was his age combined with a perception of general political decrepitude.

  Clinton won the 1992 election with 43 percent of the vote; Ross Perot captured 19 percent. Clinton didn’t win because of his youth—he won because of Bush’s agedness.Nonetheless, he ushered presidential politics into a new era: the era of the Baby Boomers.

  That era continued with Clinton’s reelection in 1996. Running against seventy-three-year-old Bob Dole, Clinton hardly had to raise the age issue. The media did it for him. “Bob Dole is so old he got Grecian Formula from the original Grecian,” cracked Jay Leno.

  “Of the candidates currently running for President, most lived through Vietnam and the Cold war,” joked David Letterman. “A few even lived through the Second World War and the Great Depression. But only one candidate lived through the Civil War, the Declaration of Independence, and Columbus’s Discovery of the New World. Elect Bob Dole. He’s one thousand years old.”

 
Leno again: “You know what the hot drink going around L.A. is? The cool new drink? These Metamucil cocktails. Who drinks orange Metamucil shooters? I mean, besides Bob Dole on spring break?”

  And Letterman: “When Bob Dole first ran for office, of course it was easier. There were only thirteen colonies then.”101

  WHERE ARE WE WITH THE AGE ISSUE TODAY? Our last two presidents were first elected at ages forty-six and fifty-four. Youth may no longer be the barrier it once was.

  Or is it? During the 2004 election, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, fifty, ran for the Democratic nomination. Though he failed, he was granted a slot on the ticket with sixty-year-old nominee Senator John Kerry.

  And with his fluffy hair and boyish smile, he proceeded to undermine the ticket’s gravitas.

  During the vice presidential debate with Dick Cheney, moderator Gwen Ifill pointed out: “Ten men and women have been nominees of their parties since 1976 to be vice president. Out of those ten, you have the least governmental experience of any of them.”102

  Jay Leno cracked, “The attacks have already started. John Edwards is too inexperienced to be president, he’s too flashy, he’s not up to the job. And those are just the things John Kerry said in the primary.”103

  Age mattered for Edwards. And age continues to matter because it is an indicator of experience—and experience will always matter. Baseball fans are constantly reminded that a team of talented youngsters won’t cut it—veteran leadership is required. The same holds true in politics. Leadership by the not-yet-wise is a recipe for disaster.

  5

  The Beer Buddy Syndrome

  WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO GRAB a beer with Bill Clinton?

  Homey, easygoing, one of the boys, 1992 Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton was the kind of fellow you’d want to invite to your barbecue. He was hang-loose and happy-go-lucky. He was funny. Clinton was the type of guy you’d hang out with at the local pub, swapping jokes about the ol’ ball and chain. Even Republican Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, stumping hard for incumbent president George H. W. Bush, said that he’d “like to go out and have a beer with Bill Clinton.”1

  Clinton is actually allergic to beer.2 But there is little doubt that during the 1992 election cycle, Clinton was the more likable candidate.

  Much of Clinton’s appeal sprang from his caustic sense of humor, which he tempered with laconic delivery. In November 1991, Vice President Dan Quayle announced that he would be a “pit bull” in attacking Democratic aspirants. “My,” Clinton drawled, “that’s got every fire hydrant in America worried.”3

  Clinton also recognized that he had to be careful not to come off as a wise guy.To that end, he repeatedly joked about his intelligence, turning himself from an Ivy League law student into just another boob. At one campaign event, Clinton was introduced as the smartest Democratic candidate. Clinton responded, “Isn’t that like calling Moe the most intelligent of the Three Stooges?”4

  He also joked about his staff, contrasting his own folksiness with their style. Well-coiffed communications director George Stephan-opolous was “just a heartthrob away from the presidency,” Clinton said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Georgie . . . That sort of angelic funk look . . . He’s going to be insufferable.”5 Of running mate Al Gore, Clinton wryly observed, “Al Gore is younger, better-looking and thinner than I am, and I resent it. But I’ll get over it.”6

  Clinton particularly enjoyed directing his wit at President Bush. While speaking in Atlanta, Clinton drew on his Southern history to rip Bush’s handling of the economy. Trusting the economy to Bush, Clinton joked, would be like “hiring General Sherman to be fire commissioner.”7 In Davenport, Iowa, on Halloween, Clinton handed out prizes to children with the best costumes. “The winner of the scariest is—George Bush,” he announced.8

  Clinton made sure to use down-home phraseology during the 1992 campaign to contrast with Bush’s less-than-credible Texan style. In Tennessee, Clinton invoked some earthy imagery. The weather, Clinton stated, was “hotter than a pickup’s windshield out here.” The presidential race was “tight as a tick.” The election wasn’t about Democrats and Republicans—“That’s a dog that won’t hunt anymore.”9 Clinton bragged, “It’s well known that I commune with [Elvis Presley’s] spirit.”10 He challenged Bush to a good old-fashioned fistfight—a challenge that carried little risk for Clinton, who was twenty-two years Bush’s junior.11

  Perhaps most effectively, Clinton used humor to play the victim. President Bush had attacked Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis with gusto during his 1988 campaign, but he had never looked mean in doing it. Clinton saw that by playing the victim, he could paint Bush as a bitter old man. Clinton’s wife, Hillary, was deeply involved in the campaign; when Bush criticized her, Clinton ruefully cracked, “If he wants to run against my wife, it’s OK with me if he wants to be first lady—but I don’t want to live with him.”12

  After the media reported that the Bush Administration State Department had unearthed files about Clinton’s mother, Clinton went on the attack. “Now it turns out that the State Department was not only rifling through my files, but actually investigating my mother—a well-known subversive,” Clinton told a crowd in Seattle. “[Leonid] Brezhnev was calling her to get tips on the third race at Oaklawn every night,” Clinton joked. “She had a little shrine in the corner of our home to Joe Stalin.”13

  This strategy worked well for Clinton. Clinton’s scandals worked to his advantage, gilding him in the public eye as a good ol’ boy—a guy who had cheated, smoked, draft dodged, and lived to tell about it. In short, Clinton was a likable cad. Bush, on the other hand, had too sharp an edge. Bush campaigned vigorously against Clinton, ripping him on his draft dodging, his marijuana use, his personal morality. But it all backfired; the public began to see Bush as dour and mean-spirited.

  Clinton, Bush said, was “leader of the Arkansas National Guard—the man who hopes to be commander-in-chief? Well, while I bit the bullet, he bit his nails.”14 “My dog Millie knows more about foreign affairs than these two bozos,” Bush remarked, referring to Clinton and third-party contender Ross Perot.15 Bush referred to Al Gore as “Mr. Ozone,” and invoked Millie’s intellectual prowess again, contending, “If I want foreign policy advice, I’d go to Millie before I’d go to Ozone and Governor Clinton.”16

  The media had a lot to do with the perception of Bush as mean. They often called him “nasty” and referred to his comments as “sarcastic.” When Bush questioned Clinton’s decision to go to Moscow as a student at Oxford University during the Vietnam War, the media blasted him, labeling the criticism “not just patently desperate, but deplorably sordid,” “not just nasty, but demagogic,” “a new low in sly innuendo and overt mud-heaving.”17 As Bush groused, “I felt like one of those corn dogs at the fair, skewered by the Democratic opposition for nine months . . . He takes a little, gentle broadside and he starts to whine and complain.”18

  Bush simply did not have the good-natured humor of his predecessor, Ronald Reagan. Contrast Bush’s acidic attacks with Reagan’s warm jocularity during the 1992 contest. In 1988, Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen had attacked Dan Quayle for comparing himself to JFK with regard to age: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.” During the 1992 campaign, Clinton’s campaign compared him to Thomas Jefferson. Reagan pounced on the comparison, invoking Bentsen’s comments. “I knew Thomas Jefferson,” Reagan quipped. “He was a friend of mine, and Governor, you’re no Thomas Jefferson.”19

  And Bush was no Reagan.When it came time for the election, Clinton trounced Bush, largely on the strength of his own folksy humor.

  “PEOPLE NATURALLY LIKE TO BE in good spirits, to laugh, and feel uplifted—and are drawn to those who make them feel that way,” wrote Drs. Ann Demaris and Valerie White in their book First Impressions: What You Don’t Know About How Others See You . “You don’t have to be a comedian.
You can elevate others’ moods in many ways, such as by smiling, being in the moment, acting playful or entertaining, and directing your attention to the positive and humorous elements in the situation.”20

  Simply put, we like people who are funny and engaging. We don’t like people who are mean or boring. This holds true for both partygoers and presidential candidates.

  It’s the “beer buddy syndrome.”

  There’s an episode of The Simpsons, Two Bad Neighbors, that aptly demonstrates the power of the “Beer Buddy Syndrome.”

  George H.W. Bush and Barbara move to Springfield, right across the street from the Simpsons. The Bushes get along famously with the uptight and religiously upright Flanders. They don’t get along well with the Simpsons, however. Bart calls the former president and first lady by their first names, and accidentally shreds Bush’s memoirs. “I’m going to do something your daddy should have done a long time ago,” President Bush says, then puts Bart over his knee and spanks him. This touches off an episode-long feud between Bush and Homer, culminating in Bush’s decision to move away from Springfield.

  As soon as Bush leaves, another car pulls in. The license plate reads, “MR DUH.” It is former president Gerald Ford.

  “Say, Homer, do you like football?” Ford asks Homer.

  “Do I ever!” answers Homer.

  “Do you like nachos?” Ford asks Homer.

  “Yes, Mr. Ford,” answers Homer.

  “Well, why don’t you come over and watch the game, and we’ll have nachos? And then, some beer,” says Ford.

  “Ooh!” exclaims Homer. As they walk into the house, they both trip, and simultaneously yell, “D’oh!” It is, presumably, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  Now, this is obviously satire, and rather poor satire at that. But the episode certainly holds some truth. If Gerald Ford had not been Richard Nixon’s vice president, he likely would have won the 1976 election. He was likable; H.W. Bush was not. Homer Simpson is a stereotypical caricature of the common man—he prefers a man who likes football, nachos, and beer to a man who insists on the particulars. If Bush were running against Ford in Springfield, there is little doubt who would win.