The Week

Vote for Clinton in ’92, and the media will give you full credit for repudiating not only Bush, but Ronald Reagan too. A real bargain.

Why did George Bush go, in two and half years, from bestriding the narrow world like a colossus, to striving hard to catch up to a second-string Democrat like Bill Clinton? There is what may be called the official theory, propounded by Clinton and the media: 12 years of trickle-down economics and coddling the radical religious Right finally caught up with the GOP. Thomas Byrne Edsall and Ben Wattenberg, two Clinton supporters, have separately suggested an alternative view. Wattenberg: “At their Houston convention, Republicans made a tone-deaf pass at . . . social issues under the rubric of ‘family values.’ They were trashed, and giggled at, by the reflexively liberal media. Instead of expanding and explaining their theme, they ‘backed off.’ Who needs them if they won’t fight that fight?” Edsall: “[Voter interviews] found large numbers of Reagan Democrats mentioning the pledge of ‘no new taxes’ among their reasons for returning to the Democratic Party. Fewer mentioned the Civil Rights Bill, but opposition to affirmative-action policies requiring specific goals . . . remained high, and these voters no longer felt Bush would address their grievances.” In other words, Bush undermined the Reagan coalition by abandoning conservative positions, or by taking them up too late and too crudely. Mr. Bush has learned his lesson—we hope not too late.

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Presidential Election

Vote for Clinton in ’92, and the media will give you full credit for repudiating not only Bush, but Ronald Reagan too. A real bargain.

Why did George Bush go, in two and half years, from bestriding the narrow world like a colossus, to striving hard to catch up to a second-string Democrat like Bill Clinton? There is what may be called the official theory, propounded by Clinton and the media: 12 years of trickle-down economics and coddling the radical religious Right finally caught up with the GOP. Thomas Byrne Edsall and Ben Wattenberg, two Clinton supporters, have separately suggested an alternative view. Wattenberg: “At their Houston convention, Republicans made a tone-deaf pass at . . . social issues under the rubric of ‘family values.’ They were trashed, and giggled at, by the reflexively liberal media. Instead of expanding and explaining their theme, they ‘backed off.’ Who needs them if they won’t fight that fight?” Edsall: “[Voter interviews] found large numbers of Reagan Democrats mentioning the pledge of ‘no new taxes’ among their reasons for returning to the Democratic Party. Fewer mentioned the Civil Rights Bill, but opposition to affirmative-action policies requiring specific goals . . . remained high, and these voters no longer felt Bush would address their grievances.” In other words, Bush undermined the Reagan coalition by abandoning conservative positions, or by taking them up too late and too crudely. Mr. Bush has learned his lesson—we hope not too late.