Bush on the Tightrope

The question tormenting George Bush’s campaign strategists is whether their candidate can walk the tightrope Reagan walked in 1980 and 1984 and attract New Deal defectors along with traditional Republicans and conservative independents.

To understand the challenge, it is instructive to recall the realignments of the elections of 1932 and 1936, during that era of the New Deal when majorities of blue-collar voters, Catholics, and white Southerners united to help form a new Democratic majority. Since then, these voters have rarely defected from the Democratic coalition—in fact, only three times: once for Nixon and twice for Reagan.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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George H. W. Bush

Ronald Reagan

Presidential Election

The question tormenting George Bush’s campaign strategists is whether their candidate can walk the tightrope Reagan walked in 1980 and 1984 and attract New Deal defectors along with traditional Republicans and conservative independents.

To understand the challenge, it is instructive to recall the realignments of the elections of 1932 and 1936, during that era of the New Deal when majorities of blue-collar voters, Catholics, and white Southerners united to help form a new Democratic majority. Since then, these voters have rarely defected from the Democratic coalition—in fact, only three times: once for Nixon and twice for Reagan.