Party in Search of a Theme

REPUBLICANS have been so used to bad news that there were some in Houston who saw the travails of Woody Allen as yet another setback, in that they competed with the Convention for the media spotlight. On the other hand, the story proved that untraditional families are at least as crazy as traditional ones. Allen and Mia Farrow don’t even have the excuse of poverty, though she does live in a rent-controlled apartment.

The Republicans had only their own long-windedness to blame for bumping Ronald Reagan out of prime time on Monday night. It was an autumnal performance, and he ended by bidding the delegates “good-bye.” Yet the text was all youth and hope, quoting—and believing—Emerson, on America as “the country of tomorrow.” Reagan’s optimism was all the more striking, coming off the speech of one of the pretenders to his mantle, Patrick Buchanan. Buchanan formally ended his revolt against George Bush as he began it in Concord, New Hampshire, nine months earlier, with personal grace toward his foe. All the intervening bites on Bush’s hams were forgotten. For the rest, Buchanan drew on the dark images he loves so well: of a stolid paper-mill worker in Graveton, New Hampshire, telling him, “Save our jobs”; of soldiers on riot duty in burning Los Angeles, taking back the city block by block—a fit metaphor, Buchanan said, for the cultural and religious warfare facing America in the Nineties. This saturnine temper, more than the Jewish Question, or any other issue squall, will be what keeps him from ever grasping a nomination. He is the kind of person democracies want to have on call, not making the calls.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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REPUBLICANS have been so used to bad news that there were some in Houston who saw the travails of Woody Allen as yet another setback, in that they competed with the Convention for the media spotlight. On the other hand, the story proved that untraditional families are at least as crazy as traditional ones. Allen and Mia Farrow don’t even have the excuse of poverty, though she does live in a rent-controlled apartment.

The Republicans had only their own long-windedness to blame for bumping Ronald Reagan out of prime time on Monday night. It was an autumnal performance, and he ended by bidding the delegates “good-bye.” Yet the text was all youth and hope, quoting—and believing—Emerson, on America as “the country of tomorrow.” Reagan’s optimism was all the more striking, coming off the speech of one of the pretenders to his mantle, Patrick Buchanan. Buchanan formally ended his revolt against George Bush as he began it in Concord, New Hampshire, nine months earlier, with personal grace toward his foe. All the intervening bites on Bush’s hams were forgotten. For the rest, Buchanan drew on the dark images he loves so well: of a stolid paper-mill worker in Graveton, New Hampshire, telling him, “Save our jobs”; of soldiers on riot duty in burning Los Angeles, taking back the city block by block—a fit metaphor, Buchanan said, for the cultural and religious warfare facing America in the Nineties. This saturnine temper, more than the Jewish Question, or any other issue squall, will be what keeps him from ever grasping a nomination. He is the kind of person democracies want to have on call, not making the calls.