The Campaign Spectator/Wincing at Messages

...This gloomy assessment (somebody's gotta say it) reaches its nadir with Gephardt—visibly angry now—challenging the apologists of the status quo to visit the Caterpillar tractor factory where he recently spoke with 1100 men-1100 brave men!—who had to go home one night and tell their wives and kids they lost their jobs...

...But wait...

...Paul Fussell* National Book Award winner "Hynes has caught it just the way I remember it...

...I'm still undecided," she said...

...Now here's a message: something's gone wrong, Gephardt said...

...Ever since he blew up at Tom Brokaw for calling him a "television evangelist," there's been more attention paid to what Pat is than what his "stands on the issues" are...

...Senator, give that kid a raise...

...He himself prefers the title "religious broadcaster," and technically he's correct, since he was never a TV preacher in the strict sense...

...10001 "Perceptive and sensitive, honest and funny . . .* FUGUE PASSAGE REFLECTIONS OF A WORLD WAR II AVIATOR * SHUR IMIES "Hynes's book offers a beautiful and immensely readable account of growing up as an American – learning to love, to drink, to fly, and to kill...

...Just give peace a chance...

...The pundits came up with all kinds of reasons why, chief among them the low percentage of evangelicals among New Hampshire voters...

...Here as elsewhere, said Kathleen Sullivan, TV is the great mediator between candidate and voter...

...As one country, indivisible, we can make this nation what it can -and must be...

...You may wonder how a President will go about doing that—enforce the sodomy laws...

...The emptiness of the two front-running campaigns was made obvious during the final debate before the primary...

...at a mall, in Manchester...

...In this he has much in common with his ordained counterpart in the Democratic party...

...His supporters, many of whom had joined in jeering Babbitt, cheered wildly when Pete cleared his throat, but a Jackson fan suggested he go to hell...

...Bob, for his part, was appalled, and returned fire...

...AUTHORS WANTED BY NEW YORK PUBLISHER Leading subsidy book publisher seeks manuscripts of all types: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, scholarly and juvenile works, etc...

...She was wearing a Dukakis button...

...for most of them it's the only negotiable currency...

...A Mozart quintet played over the p.a...

...In the interests of natural science, I studied the candidates' supporters as I traveled through New Hampshire, and found few surprises...

...He looks so gorgeous on TV...

...But is it any dumber than Dole's talk of "leadership" or Bush's bid to become the "education President...

...Then: an inspirational story about a ninety-year-old schoolteacherwho gets Meals on Wheels, a program "I had the privilege to vote for eleven times...

...The depth of Hynes's understanding and his tactful art have created a war memoir which will become a classic...

...Republicans will have to corral a lot of Richies—voting age Richiesif Bob or George are to beat a Democrat this fall, particularly, I think, if it's a Democrat named Richard Gephardt...

...To which I would add: "Yes, but only for a couple weeks every four years...

...There's a reason for this: Gephardt, unlike Bush and Dole, has something to say...

...Or was it Paul Simon...

...The large noontime crowd had been prepped with little American flags, and as the music segued into Linda Ronstadt's version of "Livin' in the USA," signalling the candidate's arrival, they fluttered furiously...

...In Bush's case, it was a high-water mark of the Wince Factor: the Vice President's tendency to say things that cause his right-wing admirers, of whom there are many, to cringe and reach for the channel-changer...

...hope...

...What would the mall people do if a winner had dared make a bid for their votes...

...At a. polling place earlier in the day, a voter accused him, with some persistence, of being a taxer...

...Robertson's political appeal, like Jackson's, is rooted in concerns that are properly extra-political, and so it requires little in the way of specific reinforcement: "We must restore our moral strength," grins Pat, and his followers flood with passion...

...I made the mistake of listening to my copy on a Walkman...

...When Kemp's jaw dropped, Bush tried to qualify: "With your eyes wide open," he added...

...I can't explain the Mozart, but the little flags and the Chuck Berry jingoism were right on the money, for Gephardt's message is nationalism in bone and sinew...

...the firm chins, square shoulders, splendid posture, and, in several cases, advanced cases of Long Island lockjaw—the kind of kids who look great in turtlenecks...

...What I Will Do As President," it's called...

...Meantime, the case of the invisible eyebrows had been solved with a quick stroke of the brown wax-pencil...

...At Samson's Gym, in Manchester, the Rev donned rayon warm-ups and (probably weighted) gloves and boxed a couple rounds with a born-again Golden Gloves champ, whose astonishment at the man of God's aggressive left-hand was made horribly manifest in a series of muted, plaintive shrieks...

...We gotta get the message out," he said...

...Which is the one from Arizona...

...At one point in the debate, exasperated at Kemp's skepticism toward the Soviets' promised withdrawal from Afghanistan, he said, "Don't fight progress when you see it...

...He begins in the dolorous cadences of a man on the verge of giving up hope: "We are beginning—to sacrifice—this nation's—strength...

...Capital ("Corporate America is up there in their offices worrying about how to make quick profits on America's decline instead of down there in the work place trying to make the best products we can"), and the editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal (I'm still working on that one...

...Flustered by his opponent's relentless hostility to the Soviets, he felt compelled for some reason to demur, and in defense he deployed the first cliche that occurred to him—not minding that it was childish, and the exclusive property of people who consider him the moral equivalent of Martin Bormann...

...Gotta get the message out...

...Given a free hand, of course, either one would haul in new revenues until your teeth hurt, and this easily deducible fact makes the squabble slightly unreal—and hugely entertaining, especially since it seems to irritate Bob so...

...They force-feed instead on a diet of things like the "Rally Finale" (in New Hampshire the words rhyme...

...Pat isn't saying, and his devotees aren't 48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1988 listening anyway...

...Then, as Paul Simon meandered through his plea for a "government that leads that cares that dreams," his dim, unmodulated voice (it sounds like a jew's-harp) was lost in a chorus of "Get to the point...

...Fr his particular circle of hell has 1 been called "retail politics" by the press, meaning that voters get to lay eyes on an actual candidate—or if they're really lucky, they can hold one of New Hampshire's celebrated coffee klatches, so the pol and a half-dozen camera crews can track slush across the living room carpet and prop their snow boots on the coffee table...

...The most prominent example was the minute-by-minute handicapping of the candidates...

...On the day before the primary he engaged in what was arguably the most degrading photo opportunity of the campaign (the runner-up was Vice President Bush's turn at the wheel of a sixteen-wheeler, with his Secret Service agents perched watchfully on the running board...

...The young Bushies, for example, were pretty much what you'd expect...

...At once the tone and rhythm of Gephardt's words change: the weariness, through sheer force of will, is shed: from the depths the cadence rises, slowly: We can makeAmerica—great—and good—and strong again...

...and lined along the yupscale shops on the town square, within earshot of the cranes swinging over construction sites on the edge of town, the Portsmouth crowd, when Gephardt was through with it, was ready to take up the cudgels against the intellectuals and the robber barons and the politicians and the bureaucrats who tell us we have to accept the way things are...

...A quartet of musicians in Gay Nineties garb, the Dixieland Strollers, struck up "Hail to the Chief" as Babbitt, the first victim, made his way to the microphone...

...Get back in your cage," Bob said—snapped...

...When it was over and the candidates had hurried away, very few people made for the exits—the mall was like home—and I decided to linger too...

...Sure...

...The qualification didn't help...

...Robertson was not expected to do well here, but after his trouncing of Bush there, he was expected to do better than expected here, and then as the polls piled up before primary day it was suddenly expected that he wouldn't do as well as expected when he was expected to do better than expected...

...asked a lady who was using my right shoulder as a balance beam...

...And then a boffo finish with his catch-all slogan: "It's your—fight—too...

...One enterprising reporter for the Manchester Union Leader studied this latest stump speech of Gephardt's and discovered that the words "strength" and "strong" appeared thirty-nine times...

...We have come to a crossroads...

...the faint echo of Huey Long is probably unintentional...

...And I'm still undecided...

...several news shows ran features to declare retail politics a myth...

...In New Hampshire, he stuck to a two-button suit of presidential blue...

...Governor Wallace, your redemption is nigh...

...When I caught up with him I pointed to the Dole button and asked, "What do you have against Vice President Bush...

...I looked over my notes: Simon had showed up, and Babbitt, and Jackson, and Kemp, and du Pont...

...But I kind of like Gore...

...This might be a sweet thing for a fellow to say after a partial lobotomy, but for a presidential candidate it's dismaying...

...rose from the assembled democrats: "Babbitt sucks...

...Dole said—the press's word was "snapped...

...Monumentally, staggeringly stupid...

...Willikers...

...Government is good...

...Sure, he looked ludicrous during Iowa, with the feed-grain cap yanked down over his blond head and his upper-half wrapped in a Michelin-man parka, but for the trip east the trappings of the hilljack were temporarily mothballed...

...before Iowa, for example, the Rev...

...He was a twelve-year-old kid who told me his name was Richie: with a Dole button pinned prominently on his down vest, he circled the polling place ripping down every Bush sign he could get his hands on—our next Donald Segretti...

...Republicans who would like to discredit him should face the fact that none of this—the resume, the policy positions, the wild, unfounded stories he's fond of telling—none of it matters to those who have heard the Rev's call...

...The problem is them...

...To counter what he perceives as an attempt to trivialize his qualifications, Robertson took every opportunity in New Hampshire to run through his resume: "I founded the fourth largest cable company in the country, I'm president of a university, I've been in television for twenty-five years, I've been a film buyer, a programmer, a producer, a director"—hold it...

...It's not the fault of the wizened grannies...

...Much of what he says is standard-issue conservatism (supporting right-to-work laws), some is merely fanciful (making Ross Perot secretary of defense), and much of it carries unmistakable overtones of right-wing kookery (the Trilateral Commission is leading us to a one-world socialist state...

...New authors welcomed...

...This, as the lady at the mall instructed me, is surely true, but it's the kind of double-cross—the media convincing us, through constant repetition, of one thing, and then pulling the rug out—that was typical of the way the press covered this over-covered event...

...As it happened, of course, Pat didn't do as well as expected (correct me if I'm wrong...

...The podium, set up at the confluence of Florsheim Shoes and Zale's Jewelers, had as a backdrop an air-brushed painting of a caboose platform, a reminder of campaigns as they were in the olden days and (went the proud implication) still are, here in New Hampshire...

...Bush is a pol and pols deal in cant...

...Stop lying about my record...

...He's an asshole," Richie snapped, and took off like a flushed rabbit...

...It's a theme repeated in his television commercials: the weary voice, recorded with heavy echo as if reverberating down through the entire history of this great land, is ladled over vaguely melancholy music, and accompanies soft-focus images of wheat fields, wrinkled grandmothers, horny-handed workmen, gap-toothed children brimming with innocent (but fruitless...

...Bush's closing statement didn't help, either...

...Before he could open his mouth a chant Andrew Ferguson is assistant managing editor of The American Spectator...

...It's not your fault, or mine...

...No, it's smarter: there's a growing sense, in New Hampshire and elsewhere, that things have taken a turn for the worse, and that America is getting kicked around: by the Asians, by Wall Street's get-rich-quick guys, by uppity allies...

...Bush's conservative followers, I predict, are in for a campaign of many cringes...

...In an attempt to carve out a message, George expended much campaign treasure contending that Dole has a secret desire to raise taxes...

...Send for free, illustrated 40-page brochure H-80 Vantage Press, 516 W. 34 St., New York, N.Y...

...Russell Baker Pulitzer Prize winner Available at bookstores or direct from the NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS (M.Toll-Free: 1-800-233-USNI IA' In Md: (301) 224-3378/9 (0901) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1988 49...

...Portsmouth is a Reagan-era boomtown, with lower unemployment than the state at large, which itself has the lowest unemployment of any state in the country...

...For a moment it appeared to lead him up that same meandering California highway a confused President Reagan pioneered in the close of his first debate with Walter Mondale in 1984...

...But what kind of cant...

...I approached a woman by the Waldenbooks and asked her why she had come...

...A more expensive, though less conventional, try for the mainstream was Pat's mailing of cassette tapes to every registered Republican in the state...

...It's time to tell the forces of greed: enough is enough...

...Pat's short-of-breath delivby Andrew Ferguson ery—you can hear him smiling—is deeply unsettling at such close range...

...He and his chief rival, Bob Dole, were locked in a war of messages—George trying to get his message across, Bob trying to keep George from distorting his message—made all the more confusing by the fact that neither of them has one...

...There I saw democratic hell: roiling, orgiastic partisanship, heaving sweaty bodies wrapped in campaign ribbons, flushed damp faces shoved together shouting, cardboard signs cracked over heads and trampled underfoot, a sea of plastic boaters bobbing, overweight mothers in stretch pants using baby carriages as battering rams to get a better look at . . . Bruce Babbitt...

...Since Gephardt never quite spells it out, the identity of them must be a matter of deduction, but it seems to come down to the Japs ("Yes, we must compete, but fairly—by golly we have to make sure they treat us as well as we treat them...

...Reminds me of what being young was like in Piper Cubs and Yellow Perils...

...Stupid...

...to Bush on primary night...

...But no...

...settle for the evangelist...

...After spending time with the Robertson crowd in New Hampshire, I'm convinced that the precinct workers would labor unperturbed even if the candidate announced that he enjoys wearing leatherette pasties during his off-hours...

...And certainly not of the gap-toothed brats...

...I may not articulate much, but I feel...

...There is very little evidence to suggest that Pat will ever extend his support beyond this rarefied bloc, notwithstanding his efforts to play to the average Joe...

...Pete du Pont and Jack Kemp, the only two candidates who represented a body of ideas—who had, that is, a message—faded further into irrelevance with each tracking poll...

...Although the press devoted much energy certifying retail politics as an exclusive privilege of New Hampshirites and Iowans, in the final days of the campaign the privilege was revoked as quickly as it had been granted...

...The campaign is the message...

...THE CAMPAIGN SPECTATOR WINCING AT MESSAGES Manchester, New Hampshire T f you've read even one-fifth of the 1 5,473,296 words that have been written about the 1988 primary here, then you've come across the quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The God who made New Hampshire taunts the lofty mountains with little men...

...abolish off-track betting...

...Old brick storefronts, sandblasted to gentrified perfection, face the square, and the stores have names like "Macro Polo" and "G...

...And...

...My sister's in Arizona and she loves him...

...It was a rich spectacle: the man who thought KempRoth was the work of witch doctors accusing the architect of America's largest-ever tax hike of an itch for "new revenues...

...Babbitt sucks...

...I just thought this might help me make up my mind...

...Dole had his share of fresh-faced young people, but I found the real Dole organization-than outside a polling place in Manchester the morning of primary day...

...It was held (where else...

...nce we got our message acrosshow're we gonna get this deficit down, what're we gonna do about education—that's when we started to see some forward movement," said George Bush, the morning after he won the primary here...

...I saw him speak in the town square of Portsmouth, on the Atlantic coast...

...and "The Bagelry...

...The candidates—I mean the five (of a possible eleven) who were desperate enough to show up—appeared one by one through an access hallway cleared by the Secret Service...

...Bush never quite got down to business, which arouses the suspicion that he hasn't got much business to transact...

...Bruce stuttered and headbobbed his way through his set-piece, and then Pete du Pont stepped into the abattoir of universal suffrage...

...you and he...

...If nothing else, it keeps you alert...

...All losers...

...I don't talk much, but I do believe," he said earnestly...

...New Hampshirites themselves seem like a nice bunch, but when the little men with the big campaigns show up the natives should have enough sense to stay home and watch it on TV...