|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Bush: Can He Come from Behind Again?
| Article
# : |
20687 |
|
|
Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
|
| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1992 |
1,530 Words |
| Author
: |
Ralph Z. Hallow
Ralph Z. Hallow is a political reporter and senior national
correspondent for the Washington Times. |
The overriding similarity between 1988 and now is that George Bush trailed badly in the polls in the summer and faced a barrage of criticism and conservative strategists.
This year they faulted him for not coming out punching early enough against H. Ross Perot and Gov. Bill Clinton. But Bush told advisers that he knew Perot personally as they did not and that Perot was not a serious candidate and would not last. Bush was right.
He played it just right, sending surrogates, including First Lady Barbara, out to plant doubts with voters about Perot's character. Perot's popularity plummeted and courted interest groups gave him flak instead of thanks, so the Texas billionaire up and quit.
All the while, campaign chairman Robert Teeter never panicked. In spite of popular national polling, he knew Bush was far better off in the election-deciding Electoral College, where a one-vote majority in each of 50 states and the District of Columbia determines who gets all a state's electoral votes.
In early July, when Perot was leading in most popular national samplings, independent pollster Dick Bennett completed polls in 50 states and D.C. and found that if the election were held the next day, Bush would win 273 electoral votes, three more than a bare majority, compared to Perot's 219 and Clinton's 46.
Perot's now free-floating bloc of voters could change all that in November, altering the tally in enough states to give Clinton a majority in the Electoral College. Advisers said Bush faces a tougher and nastier battle this year than four years ago.
Still, Bush's reluctant gladiator image did not change this time, just as it did not change in 1988, until his personality changed. In 1988 the change lasted for a long as needed: from the GOP nominating convention in August to the election in November. He trounced Dukakis because Bush projected enough conservatism to show Dukakis up as a liberal. Bush conveyed a truth to voters: that he was enough of a conservative to fit the description as the broad center of American politics defines it. He also had the economic prosperity of the Reagan years on his side, as he painfully does not this time. But if that was all that counted, he would not have trailed Michael Dukakis by 17 points in the summer of 1988.
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
