Michael Dukakis continues to bore down on the Democratic nomination, while Jesse Jackson continues to be Black and to talk of “economic justice.” Jackson made a notable contribution to the race—sorry, to the campaign—by keeping the electorate from sleeping through the primary season, but has sullied the political process with the introduction of issues into the campaign.
Jackson has come to the convention with seven million votes behind him, but all that is behind us now. Though Jackson won the major cities and has only three million fewer votes than Dukakis, the numbers just don’t add up. Jesse’s always been better at poetry than arithmetic. It is above all his position that the public should control corporations just because the opposite is true that has cost him support with the public, that is superdelegates, that is, PAC’s, that is, the business community, that is, the public, that is, me.
On the Republican side, Vice President Bush has relaxed tensions by saying he will appoint to the Supreme Court moderate people of conservative views. In economic matters, Bush has promised a flexible freeze on government spending, but denies that flexible freeze translates as thin ice. He further denied that his capital gains tax cut will favor the rich, saying the difference between its effect on the wealthy and on those less well-off will be zero; in fact, it will be three zeros.
The Vice President continues to deny that he didn’t know what his aides were doing when they were not involved with illegal arms for the Contras, assassination plots in Costa Rica, and not trying to inform him about General Noriega’s involvement with cocaine trafficking, which was long suspected but only confirmed with absolute certainty last week. Or next week. Mr. Bush is campaigning for higher ethical standards in government.
Mr. Bush continues to be insulted by his main adversary, Garry Trudeau, but the candidate claims he is not bothered by the comic strips, which portray him in no particular light at all. Bush commented, “I don’t understand Doonesbury even when it’s about me.”
The Vice President has distanced himself from the Reagan administration in the same determined and enthusiastic manner with which he was endorsed by the President. For example, where Reagan said he was sorry to hear of the Pentagon Purchasing Power Mix-up, Bush said he was shocked. And Bush said he is against discrimination against AIDS victims, where Reagan has only said he is against AIDS.
Mr. Bush continues to play down the flap over Dan Quayle, saying that his running mate never burned his draft card and had every right to defend his country in Vietnam from at home. Besides, he said, Mr. Quayle has a lot in common with the common man; for example, his personal worth is estimated at less than $100 million. And as for the weekend non-affair with golf-linked lobbyist Paula Parkinson, Quayle, in a rare foray into complete sentences, stated “I hope there is some respect and dignity for things I did not do.”
In the matter of Bush campaign aide Frederic Malek, who had been assigned by Nixon Chief of Staff Robert Haldeman to find and fire Jews in the Bureau of Labor, Bush declared his aide “free of bigotry,” saying Malek was only following orders.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Bush has been dogged by demonstrators. But in Massachusetts, Passaic County Sheriff Edwin Englehardt said, “These are the people from the ACLU. They are endangering the right of freedom of speech by using it.” Bush has acknowledged that Massachusetts does not traditionally vote Republican, but the VP has picked up the endorsement of the Springfield Police Department, which is seen as important even though Massachusetts is not generally regarded as a police state.
Mr. Bush told an audience in California that the Democratic Party is now run by the New Left, old campus radicals and people who marched for peace. He urged Democrats who opposed peace marches to join the mainstream and vote Republican.
The candidate told his audience that after eight years of Republican government we have peace, except in El Slaveador, where we have low intensity peace, and in the West Bank, Afghanistan and South Africa, where there are promising signs of peace in 1990 and the first two months of 1991, and again just before the 1992 elections.
The presidential campaign appears to be inspiring voters to fits of near wakefulness, with large numbers still undecided on which candidate to vote against. While pundits lament the dismal tenor of the campaign, they credit Mr. Bush with successfully pursuing the low road, faulting the Democrats for underestimating the high value placed on non-issues by the electorate. The so-called gut issues may or may not be real, but they are real enough to the voters, who in turn may or may not be real. However, says Michael Robinson of Georgetown University, “It’s not all media manipulation. There are polls too.”
Politics abhors a vacuum, says Professor Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution. With the candidates currently on offer, you have to add something, like a flag here or an ACLU there. These additions appear to be an improvement over the L-word and furloughed rapist Willie Horton, with voters preferring the new non-issues by 61% in a recent poll.
Mr. Dukakis is criticized for failing to hit Bush for his closeness to the wealthy, not to mention his blood relation to the royal families of Europe, which no one has. But Democrats figure that popular hostility to big business and other royalty is down in periods of prosperity. The economic indicators are currently good, and are likely to remain so through Tuesday.
The Democratic candidate denies that there are fundamental differences between himself and running mate Lloyd Bentsen, saying “Lloyd is for the Contras in Nicaragua, I’m for them in Angola. He’s from the upper class, I say there’s no underclass. He’s from Austin, I’m from Boston. And we agree on the fundamental issue of the campaign: Jesse Jackson.”
But new polls reveal confusion among the voters, who appear unable to differentiate between Lloyd Bentsen and George Bush. Both are tall Texans with more money than you. Here are some tips to help the electorate tell them apart:
- Bush is VP, Lloyd wants to be.
- Bentsen wants mandatory prayer in the schools, Bush says that’s not as important as President Reagan used to think it was.
- Bush says he doesn’t have to cover up his differences with Jesse Jackson, Bentsen has no comment.
- Bush is a former oil man, while Bentsen is merely a champion of the petroleum industry.
The differences between candidates Bush and Dukakis have begun to emerge as the conventions approach. For example, Bush says the government cannot stop plants from closing, while Dukakis maintains he would warn the workers. The Vice President continues to make the damaging allegation that Dukakis is a Liberal. While Dukakis denies it, polls indicate that the public would prefer to see the candidate go to trial on the charge before the election so there will be no doubt on voting day.
Bush has accused the Democrats of being cynics—people who prefer to see things as they are, not as they should be. The Republicans understand that if you say the economy is in good shape, people believe it, and it therefore comes true. Until proven false. Later.