Correspondence
Correspondence Conservative Dole Drums in '96 Iam one Dole supporter who believes William Kristol should be commended for speaking out early in the campaign season ("A Dole Defeat and the...
...Children may need pushing to stay on track, but not to the extremes Jessica was pushed...
...He said that he would "fix" racial preferences, while his Justice Department has been supporting them...
...The "Contract with America...
...From these facts, Shalit pans to an artist who photographed her daughter nude from infancy and then to the "shared oppression" that leads a "women's-lib theorist" to say that "we will be unable to speak of the liberation of women without also discussing the liberation of children...
...It is now abundantly clear that there isn't going to be one...
...Little Jessica should have had the opportunity to grow up...
...John F. Johnson, Jr...
...He became the Republican nominee almost because it was his turn, not because he displays any distinguishing traits...
...The president did not visit the Commerce Department twice, but only once, on the day of the crash...
...Policy differences...
...The only substantive thing Dole said was knocking William Kristol for his article doubting that Dole would win against Clinton...
...Mark Cassel Woodinville, WA William Kristol sounds like a Democratic pollster...
...Compromised away by the putative candidate, who always "comes around...
...Ideas do have consequences, and if those sympathetic to the ideas are ashamed of the consequences, why don't they admit it instead of attacking the messenger...
...Many of our concerns were ignored by the campaign staff...
...Fort Meade, MD Clinton's Very Real Grief Andrew Ferguson's use of the tragedy of Ron Brown's death to attack President Clinton ("The Interminable Grief of President Clinton," April 22) is not only offensive, but disrespectful of the memory of all of the victims of the April 3 plane crash in Croatia...
...Boy, am I discouraged...
...We learn that the underlying cause of young Jessica's death was not her parents' craze for stardom and a flight instructor's error in judgment, but rather the women's liberation movement...
...It's nothing new for parents to have dreams for their children...
...Thankfully, it is still early in the campaign season...
...All he could do was mumble insider jargon and technicalities...
...On each of these issues, Dole's position is more popular than Clinton's...
...No good American believes in polls...
...It is too early to console ourselves that the reelection of Bill Clinton will not be the loss of everything...
...Maybe he does not remember "President" Dukakis and his almost 20-point lead over Bush...
...Ferguson's account of that week (which he tastelessly labels "Brown-fest") isn't even accurate...
...The Republican Revolution...
...But we must still try...
...Bill Lunsford Valdosta, GA Given the vulnerability of President Clinton on the issues, it is foolish to write off the candidacy of Bob Dole...
...Jessica's parents are guilty of the ultimate form of child abuse...
...By pressing Clinton on these issues, the character issue is raised automatically...
...And, as Shalit notes, "someone slapped a 'Women Fly' cap on little Jessica [and] she innocently waved at the camera...
...There are many excesses for which feminism should be called to task...
...The Republican party desperately needs a leader, not a legislator...
...The fact is that for Republicans there's nothing else left...
...Gerry Dickinson Mt...
...Maybe there is such an individual among the young governors: Weld, Voinovich, Whitman, Engler, Edgar, Thompson, or maybe even Rowland...
...The enemy is the media, unions, and the traditional liberal establishment...
...If there's an ounce of shame left in the electorate, they won't make the same mistake twice...
...Correspondence Conservative Dole Drums in '96 Iam one Dole supporter who believes William Kristol should be commended for speaking out early in the campaign season ("A Dole Defeat and the Conservative Future," April 29...
...I disagree, although I believe such a defeat is unlikely to be fatal for the conservative cause...
...I can take phone books with city maps from any city and do a poll of depressed or poor neighbors and make the sample 90 percent liberal...
...We need a strategist with a vision of the future who can inspire others to follow him...
...Polls are always tilted toward liberals because most pollsters are liberal...
...Dole ducked confronting the Republican cave-in on the minimum-wage increase...
...Dole is a tactician and must build consensus among individuals who are inclined to move in his general direction anyway...
...It is precisely because an event is so heartbreaking-and we do not want it to happen again-that we must force ourselves to scrutinize everything that led up to it...
...Since we were bound by the Hatch Act, we were unable to officially join the campaign...
...Jo M. Olchawa Colton, CA Wendy Shalit's beautiful essay is indeed a moving tribute to the fleeting life of little Jessica Dubroff...
...The president did not, as Ferguson reports, begin hugging everyone after his speech to Commerce employees...
...The "Clinton coalition" of special-interest groups will stop at nothing to show that 1994 was a fluke for Republicans...
...I hope that the Dole campaign knows that Kristol, Jack Kemp, Bill Bennett, and Mary Matalin are not the enemy...
...Dole needs to get a clue, otherwise he doesn't stand a chance-and that's coming from one of his strongest supporters...
...At Dover, the president spoke of the lives and deaths of the 33 American crash victims as "a stern rebuke to the cynicism that is all too familiar today" in the United States...
...I do...
...There appears to be a lack of leadership among Republicans that condemns them to the legislature...
...Steven J. Eagle Vienna, VA Wendy Shalit Responds: The conventional wisdom that one "shouldn't generalize from tragedies" has long puzzled me...
...It seems that their only objective was to garner notoriety and publicity...
...Dole has been in the Senate for a very long time...
...It seems that society does not allow children the age of innocence anymore...
...I hope it will mark an end to the current Zeitgeist as concerns childhood and womanhood...
...What else can we expect from a man who has spent his political lifetime ratifying and collecting taxes for the welfare state...
...Dole is a legislative leader, and by all accounts a very good one...
...But it is hard to picture that Jessica's parents cared about her...
...That having been said, does it not suggest that the process through which we select our candidates is also flawed...
...By Shalit's own account, seven-year-old Jessica Dubroff "was trying to become what her daddy and mommy wanted her to become: the youngest pilot ever to complete a cross-country flight...
...Kristol ought to be able to see what the Democrats understand perfectly well: Character is the only issue that can defeat them...
...Lawrence H. O'Neill New York, NY Iagree with William Kristol that Dole's candidacy is fatally flawed...
...Unfortunately, they are well on their way to winning the battle this November...
...William W. Ginsberg Chief of Staff Department of Commerce Washington, DC The Death of Girlhood Ifound Wendy Shalit's essay "The Death of Girlhood" (April 29) very interesting...
...Meanwhile, on Meet the Press, crazy Ross Perot was speaking clearly and specifically and sounding like a statesman...
...By 2000, any or all of these leaders will have the maturity and leadership credentials as successful governors to be credible candidates...
...Clinton promised a middle-class tax cut, but he broke his promise...
...Shalit helped clarify the true background resulting in Jessica's death, as well as the magnitude of the distorted thinking of her parents, and much of the public...
...I can imagine no clearer example of such cynicism than the commentary of Andrew Ferguson that you chose to publish...
...I found his concerns valid and did not find his article mean-spirited, contrary to what the media have reported...
...He simply walked off the stage, with the rest of the cabinet following behind him...
...He promised welfare reform, but this was only "boob bait for the bubbas...
...And, for God's sake, he needs to start saying "I think," not "Bob Dole thinks...
...Electing Dole to the presidency may turn out to be impossible...
...However it is as unbecoming of Shalit, as it is for those she would condemn in the media and the arts, to score ideological points off the body of a seven-year-old...
...Kristol is speaking out now in an attempt to stop the reelection of Clinton...
...Dole needs to turn over his Senate duties to someone else, figure out something to say, and start saying it-clearly and forcefully...
...Clinton is vulnerable on the following issues: returning power to the states, welfare reform, the appointment of liberal judges, his support for racial preferences, the $500-per-child tax credit, and his veto of the bill banning partial-birth abortions...
...Richard D. Butler Greensboro, NC Although William Kristol's good purpose was clear, his article about keeping the conservative tide flowing could, without excessive stretching, be summarized as "Dole's defeat won't really be so bad for us conservatives...
...Pleasant, SC After devoting a whole day to electing Bob Dole delegates at my legislative district caucus, I tuned in this morning to Face the Nation to see and hear my candidate...
...Shot down by the standard-bearer himself, who had the power to kill it but not the wit to invent something better...
...While serving as a Bush political appointee in 1992, I, along with my colleagues, waited in vain for the Bush-Quayle campaign to swing into action...
...Lansing Pollock Buffalo, NY William Kristol's arguments for rejecting "character" as an issue in the presidential campaign are unper-suasive...
...Remember Truman's "defeat" in 1948...
...But his position as Senate majority leader requires him to deal in the art of the possible, not in the achievement of lofty goals...
...Nancy Jancourtz Eastchester, NY Ileft Wendy Shalit's essay with profound disgust...
...Why else would the Democrats be moving heaven and earth to squelch Kenneth Starr as well as any others who come forth with news and evidence that reinforce the public perception that Clinton is the most despicable person ever elected to the presidency...
...Unfortunately, the Bush campaign waited until it was too late to gear up, and Bill Clinton defeated a decent man...
...Furthermore, with the exception of the ban on partial-birth abortions, each issue fits into the general conservative theme of reducing the size and scope of the federal government...
...We must act on the understanding that the failure of the Dole campaign will prolong a shameful tenure...
Vol. 1 • May 1996 • No. 34
