Editor’s Note: Lloyd Bentsen, former senator and secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, died Tuesday at the age of 85. Bentsen served in Congress for 28 years and ran for vice president on the Democratic ticket in 1988. In the November 7, 1988, article for National Review reprinted here, William Murchison focuses on the rematch between George H. W. Bush and Bentsen–Bush had lost to Bentsen in a 1970 congressional race. (You can access NR’s archives anytime here.)
Bush has resolved within himself the tension between the two positions. Whether such tension can be resolved in the political process is another matter, but for now it seems to be playing well on the campaign trail. Frankly, I don’t see what Dukakis is going to do, short of buying a hound dog and marrying Ann Richards, to win Bubba’s vote.
–In 1988, Mr. Murchison was a columnist for the Dallas Morning News.