SMALL FAVORS
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins God Loves Irony Bathos was the predominant key at both the San Diego and the Chicago conventions. While the Democrats had some pretty good chin-tremblers, they did not...
...One can only conclude that the reason no one mentioned this elephant in our national living room is because both parties are clueless...
...It is not an act of God or even the inevitable workings of capitalism...
...Just git tough in the trenches...
...Nancy Reagan brought the most tears at the R's shindig (former President with Alzheimer's), while Veeper Al Gore got the waterworks going in Chicago (sister dying of cancer...
...For a further fillip, Dick Morris, the man who convinced Clinton to sign that bill and who made family values a national issue in the first place, was revealed as the hypocrite of the decade...
...And no one in either party had enough sense to take campaign-finance reform and make it an issue...
...Republican-white is what detergents used Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star- Telegram...
...While the Democrats had some pretty good chin-tremblers, they did not have a rape victim address their convention...
...President Clinton is said to be persuaded that incrementalism is the best one can do in government these days—no more big promises like health insurance for everyone...
...What was not discussed at the major political conventions is more important than what was...
...Senator Ted Kennedy was the only Democrat who even mentioned social justice...
...But the Democrats had more speakers in wheelchairs...
...As though Americans do not understand the root of political corruption...
...Said one unhappy Christian, "I feel like an unpaid extra in an infomercial...
...It's called education...
...As all hands paid tribute to the family and children night after night, it was sometimes hard to remember that both these parties had just managed to wreck the lives of at least a million poor children with an insane piece of legislation they call welfare reform...
...All convention speakers were required to produce at least one touching and true tale ("My daddy was just a pore boy...
...But there is such a timid quality even to his incrementalism...
...This all seems to have been connected to the feminization of the Olympics, the John Tesh touch...
...I wanted to hear Senator Jay Rockefeller talk about his daddy, but got no chance...
...Now you gals huddle up with us here: What we want you to do is go long, split left, and we'll put the ball right in your gloves...
...What...
...The deficit wasn't much of an issue in 1992 either, until Ross Perot started flipping charts and carrying on about the crazy aunt in the attic...
...Here's to him...
...As a Sherlock Holmes fan...
...I am given to noting the importance of the dog that did not bark in the night...
...Remember, it's a game of inches, and may the best man win...
...The single most striking change in American life during the past twenty years is the redistribution of income from the poor, the working class, and the middle class to the rich...
...Not to indulge in racial stereotypes, but it does help to have some people in the crowd who can clap in time...
...Well then, how'd you like to join the cheerleading squad...
...Of course, the R's had this problem speaking "women's language...
...So here we are, faced with as vapid a campaign as we've seen since Dukakis ran against Bush...
...to advertise they'd make your laundry look like...
...Sometimes it's even called leadership...
...Both parties are hellbent on winning over women voters and believe bathos is the way to do it...
...He's got an overdeveloped sense of irony...
...It is caused by deliberate government policies, and it is having a far more profound impact on this country than teenage-immi-grant-welfare-mothers-on-drugs...
...As former Governor Ann Richards of Texas pointed out, they kept breaking out in football metaphors...
...San Diego was interesting because what was on the television screen was not what was in the convention hall...
...On the other hand, taking on the tobacco lobby and the National Rifle Association isn't cowardice, either...
...However, the prospects for joy on the trail are high with Bob Dole in the race...
...Chicago was a relief because there were some people of color around, in roles other than waiter...
...I'm sure the issue doesn't play well in focus groups or score high in polls of voter concerns...
...Bob Dole is one of the most gloriously inept campaigners since Dan Quayle...
...Coming out against teen smoking and against letting wife-beaters buy guns is not quite a profile in courage...
...There was a time, children, when Democrats in convention used to rear back on their hind legs and talk about economic justice in front of God and everyone...
...Pro-choice women and moderate Republicans dominated the screen while the Christian Coalition dominated the floor...
...The trouble with God is...
Vol. 60 • October 1996 • No. 10
