I covered the 1988 presidential campaign. I was in my 20s and had no idea what I was doing, though I did enjoy myself. And watching as the George H.W. Bush campaign turned it into a referendum on prison furloughs and the pledge of allegiance (the reductio ad absurdum being Bush's visit to a flag factory), I learned some fundamental lessons about politics: Democrats must never be outflanked in the culture wars. A Democrat must never allow him/herself to be portrayed as less than 100 percent patriotic; must always express outrage at crime, even hypothetical ones; and never be photographed riding in a tank. (The coda being: never allow yourself to be photographed in a flight suit. Politicians may control the military and exploit it symbolically or bureaucratically -- but they shouldn't literally cloak themselves in it.) The final lesson: at its highest levels, politics is most effective when reduced to the trivial and sentimental, to cultural hot buttons divorced from the actual functioning of government or the presidency.
But are these rules still in force today? With the exception of the tank/flight suit rule, I'm doubting it more and more. But 1988 won't go away:
That year, the Republicans used the symbols of nationhood (notably, whether schoolchildren should be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance) to bludgeon the Democrats, challenge their patriotism and utterly redefine their nominee, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts.The memory of that campaign -- reinforced, for many, by the attacks on Senator John Kerry's Vietnam war record in the 2004 election -- haunts Democrats of a certain generation.
The 1988 campaign was, in many ways, the crucible that helped create Bill Clinton's centrist philosophy and his fierce commitment to attack and counterattack, which drove the politics of the 1990s.
Things have changed. It's the attitudes of the political class and the media that haven't.
Unlike '88, there are now some real issues before the country, and a record level of political engagement among Democrats, and, with conservatism in the ditch, a sense that some kind of political-cultural change is afoot. The main question now is not about the cultural resonance of, say, Obama's absent flag pin. (It does have some.) It's that much of the media is still stuck in 1988, and that 1988 itself has gained a kind of mythic resonance with the campaign press corps.
Back then, the press corps was a bit stunned at the success of such tactics (which were very self-consciously, almost ironically, employed by the otherwise temperamentally and politically moderate elder Bush). Today, by contrast, the media almost revels in it when the culture war's long knives are drawn. There's a weird bloodlust to it.
The media won't give up its flag pins easily. The "1988 forever" bit of conventional wisdom is the cornerstone of the current campaign press sensibility. But by definition, the conventional wisdom is, and must be, several beats behind what's actually happening.
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I certainly wish that Obama would wear a lapel pin, but it should be a Constitution lapel pin, a scroll that says "We, the People." Now that would be appropriate. Let's see if McCain would dare to wear such a pin considering his willingness to put all laws and the Constitution right into the shredder.
The one-time Obama bias has now become a Clinton bias.
I guess Act Three will be a McCain bias.
God help us.
However, when we see Wright looped for weeks now and nothing substative on Hagee and the "agents of intolerance", we aren't just dealing with a media caught up in 'tabloid' type, lapel pin focused journalism. We're caught up in an actual political force.
This political force isn't an accident of lag time. The media isn't becoming 'us'.
MSM is more a function of corporate sponsorship, if not out 'right' corporate ownership. It is now a tool of the powerful with the intent to mis-inform and to promote a particular agenda. They spew a stead intellectually low nutrition diet, with high carb glitz ... Leo's Strauss's 'Noble Lie'.
It isn't 1988 we are dealing with, it is 1984 ....
Snerd
Finally someone else understands:)
In 1984 Hart won the California primary but didn't get the credit probably due to the time difference. Neither Hart or Mondale had enough delegate votes to give them the nomination so
Mondale rounded up some Superdelegates (very quietly) and when he had enough he pulled out
all the stops and had a gigantic press conference declaring him the winner!
Now, there was NO RIOT, none at all, in fact it was very quiet.
Dukakis lost in 1988 because it was Gary Hart's to win or lose.
Now is Obama Hart? No he is not because Hart was into his second term as Senator and had a wealth of new ideas. He had done environmental work ...he was an environmental lawyer and even wrote the report on 3 Mile Island!
This year, Obama is Mondale and Clinton is Hart.
In any case an interesting analysis. I like the superdelegate comparison. But does it mean in order for Hillary to loose, we have to wait to hear she's had an affair with someone named after a grain crop?
Snerd
I really wish you'd said "US politics". You can't believe how mystified the rest of the world is at how easy it is to distract, mislead and flatter the American people into making stupid decisions. Just about everybody else on the face of the Earth with a working democracy demands at the very least that its leader should be able to speak his native tongue almost as well as foreign leaders who learned it as a second, third or fourth language. And he should have an IQ at least a little higher than a toaster.
Oh, look, a plane.....
Republicans’ allegiance to America’s core principles has become a sham. They FAIL in their Patriotic duty to put the good of the country ahead of their own narrow agenda. They have shredded these principles at every opportunity. They find them bothersome -- a hindrance to achieving their objectives (Bush: “that damn piece of paper“).
The Bush/McCain Republicans are wanna-be Kings -- not Patriots -- who have taken away (and/or tried to take away) many of the very rights that Americans won at our country‘s birth, and have fought and died to keep ever since.
True Patriots believe in America. We believe in the foundational ideas of governance that make our democracy work. True patriots don’t kick our founding ideals to the curb when they become inconvenient. True patriots’ allegiance to these principles supersedes expediency. Supersedes self interest. Supersedes partisanship. Supersedes “winning†in the short-term political context.
Barack Obama is a true Patriot, calling on Americans to demand that their government be returned to them, its rightful owners.
Until we confront the myth of Republican Patriotism, we can’t counter many of the underhanded, dishonest tactics they will surely use (again) in their quest to con the American people into voting for them.
Democrats are best known for their biased and prejudicial attitudes toward anyone who disagrees with them.
The Bush/McCain Republicans quashed opposition in the best way they could. Anyone who opposed their lies, their fear mongering, their continued shredding of the Constitution was (and still is) labeled “un-American, un-patriotic, helping the terrorists,†etc. Shameless demagogues, they convinced a cowed Congress and an ill-informed electorate that disagreement was disloyal; that dissention -- maybe the most fundamentally Patriotic action we can take -- was UNpatriotic.
And best of all, they've managed to attract a segment of the population who can be manipulated so completely with a few "hot button" issues that they'll not only vote against their own best interests, they'll lap up the language of hateful venom and spit it back out at anyone who tries to tell them the truth.
Heck, there are some who will even take the time to post comments online, just to make sure anyone who points out that the Emperor has no clothes, is made aware right away that they're unAmerican, terrorist-lovers who hate their country. It seems these NeoCon-Artists will always be able to fool some of the people, some of the time.
Will Clinton or McCain be the first to visit a flag-pin factory? Oh... Never mind, they're all in China.
1. Dukakkis was a generic vanilla democrat who didn't really have much to offer.
2. He let the Repubs have their way with him because he was an idiot
3. The country was at a relative time of peace and the biggest issues were cultural domestic ones, namely crack and crime.
4. The differences between Obama and Dukakis and the country then and now are literally black and white.
5. The current administration and views towards the GOP party are much, much, much worse now then they were back then.
6. The media and the polls have a horrible track record of predicting these things and that november is a lifetime away. Case in point: After their conventions, Dukakis lead Bush by 18 points and wound up losing in a landslide.
7. National polls don't mean jack, either in the primary or the general election. Delegates and the Electoral College elect the candidate and the president. If you go by that metric, Obama is the democratic nominee and the democrats in general TROUNCE McCain.
8. If Hillary looses North Carolina and Oregon, mathematically she cannot overtake or tie Obama in pledged delegates even if she got 100% of the vote in the other states.
9. Primary results do not translate to the general election.
10. Hillary cannot win in a democratic fashion
Why is it so hard to teach critical thinking in this country? Who decided to teach to tests rather than to think? Why is this allowed?
We do not have that situation at all today.
People see the Republicans as ineffective leaders. When Reagan pulled out of Lebanon quickly and called it his mistake he avoided a much bigger mistake: Getting bogged down in a hopeless war and being called ineffective. Unfortunately, the Clinton/Bush dynasties have falled into the trap Reagan was avoiding and that is the source of our problems today.
When Obama runs as Reagan against McCain (on foreign polilcy), the repubs are toast.
The main thing now is to get the clueless, corrupt Clintons out of the way so we can gitt'er done.
things have changed in 200 years time for a new consitution. today presidents can commit war crimes and nothing happens to them.
all must go jefferson time in america. reagans trickle down theory trickled up.
register independent and throw them all out.
corp fascism is here until we throw out these politicans. if nancy is on the take and reid and all of them to win elections.
So just turn it off and read, read read.
and the younger generations will get old and won't be able to remember a Democratic Presiden. Should obama win the nomination , you can count on 12 more years of Republican presidency( maybe sixteen} Mccain two terms, and his VP at least one
First, Obama is going to win.
Second, how could a loss by Obama affect the election of McCain's running mate in 8 years? Remember, Hillary will be 68 then and there's no guarantee the Republicans would nominate her even after eight years at McCain's side.
Third, McCain won't last more than four years anyway.
A Democrat can be photographed in a tank - just not when everyone knows he's being an insincere doofus i.e. a guy named Michael Dukakis.
If you, Mr. McQuaid, think these and other issues are trivial, which you clearly stated in your article, then it's no wonder why you and your gang can't take the reigns of power the way you want. These are core issues, and people demand that they be properly addressed FIRST.
Conservatism isn't in the ditch. That's like saying 2 + 2 = 4 is in the ditch. Conservative leaders (the math teachers, if you will) are in the ditch. But then they are human and they just politicians, so you can't expect them to hold up.
Bottom line: The government is not the solution, the people living their own personal lives are the solution. Not an original utterance by any means, but a truism, and one that renders moot the point you're trying to make.
The ridiculousness of having Mitt Romney carry the standard for the Right a handful of years after being pro-gay rights AND pro-choice exposes that even if the last disastrous eight years hadn't made it clear enough for you.