Barbara Bush Dies at 92

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Former first lady Barbara Bush, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was a remarkable woman, and her attributes are justifiably being remembered today. She said many things that should inspire the rest of us on our journeys through life.

I have felt considerable empathy for the Bush family, especially Mrs. Bush's children, who have had the pleasure of having their mother with them longer than most. I learned when my own mother died that, no matter how old we are when it happens, it feels strange to be a motherless child.

And I have learned that is a feeling that never really goes away.

I have no doubt that George W. Bush, who is now 71 years old, is feeling that way tonight — in spite of his insistence that "my soul is comforted" by his mother's certainty that there was an afterlife waiting for her.

The loss of a parent is a blow for most people, whether it is expected or not.

But it is also worth remembering that she, like all of us, was human and subject to the same shortcomings we all have.

For example, when her husband, then–Vice President George H.W. Bush, debated the first woman to be on a national ticket, Geraldine Ferraro, in October 1984, Mrs. Bush, when asked her opinion of Ferraro, replied, "I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich."

Well, we all have our shortcomings, as I said.

And most of the time Mrs. Bush was inspirational, reminding us of things that really count in life. But she wasn't perfect. None of us are.

We shouldn't lose sight of that fact as the accolades pour in.

Terrorism and Politics

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"Lawmakers burst into debate over gun control, philosophers analyzed the nature of violence, and the nation was described as grieving.

"Yet 'grief' suddenly seemed like a faintly obsolete word. Nor would 'shock,' 'rage,' 'dismay' do, either. Such anthropomorphic words have been, for generations, the most convenient shorthand of political observation, inviting writers to describe millions of people as if their emotions were fused by a single spasm of 'agony,' 'despair,' 'vengeance' or 'sorrow' — as if, indeed, they were one community. But it is impossible ever to describe a great nation as if it were a community — and, in 1968, the essence of the matter was that the old faith of Americans in themselves, as a community of communities, seemed to be dissolving."

Theodore H. White, 'The Making of the President 1968'

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Donald Trump's meteoric rise in the polls — in defiance of all conventional wisdom — is clearly baffling to many people (although the latest poll from Iowa hints that Trump may finally have peaked). They don't know what it means. Is it racism? Is it fascism? Should we pass more laws that would have been totally ineffective in preventing the latest massacre?

I think it is fairly easy to see what is happening in this country today — in large part because I can remember what happened in this country many yesterdays ago — and I have formed a theory about it and the 2016 presidential campaign.

I am speaking of a time when the United States really appeared to be coming apart at the seams — 1968 — when political assassinations and violence in city streets were commonplace.

I was only a child at the time, and I didn't fully understand everything that I saw and heard, but I could comprehend a lot of it. I saw TV reports of riots in the streets of big cities. I saw protesters being beaten by police, and I saw protesters throwing rocks and bottles at the police in response. I saw reports of prominent Americans being assassinated.

I knew fear and chaos when I saw it, and I see the same thing happening now.

Don't get me wrong. There was unrest all over the world. There always is — somewhere. But not usually everywhere — and that is what seemed to be happening in 1968. I'm not saying that actually is what was happening. But it sure seemed like it.

And it was frightening.

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You had a pretty good idea in those days which places were best to avoid. In the summer of '68, for example, you didn't want to be near the Democrats' convention hall in Chicago.

You could avoid the obvious places for protests — but those places aren't so obvious anymore. We've seen riots recently that occurred in unpredictable places. That kind of thing tends to make people feel unsafe, you know?

So do seemingly random attacks like the one in San Bernardino, Calif., less than two weeks ago.

Now, we all know that bad things can happen to any one of us at any time. That's life. And, eventually, life is going to end for us all. We may get sick or injured and never recover, or we may be in a fatal accident of some kind. Or any of 10,000 or so other potential causes of death. (The list is virtually endless.) I think most of us have accepted that. So we continue to drive our cars to restaurants and concerts and work, always with that reality tucked away in the backs of our minds.

We know that we will never get out of this world alive. We don't like to be reminded of it on a daily basis. And we don't expect death to come when we're shopping or eating — or participating in an office holiday party.

I think it was Woody Allen who said, "I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." If we're honest with ourselves, no matter what we think happens or doesn't happen when we stop breathing, that's how we feel, too.

Of course, the kind of spiritual leaders that we have historically had here in the West — ministers, priests, rabbis — remind us that we will die, but they do so as part of a long–term campaign for souls, not to encourage listeners to hasten the day when others' souls will be won or lost — for good. That image, fairly or not, is what many Americans see in their mind's eye when they think of mosques and Muslims.

I think Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are probably correct when they say that most Muslims are peaceful, but you can't ignore the fact that most of the recents terrorist acts, both here and overseas, have been committed by Muslims — and that causes fear. And when refugees are streaming across the border, it isn't possible to tell which ones can be trusted and which ones cannot.

I see 1968 and 2016 as being comparable. Then, as now, people felt unsafe, and they looked for a leader who would take a firm stand against what scared them. President Johnson left a vacuum in this regard, much as Barack Obama has left a vacuum; Hubert Humphrey was left holding the bag for the administration in '68, and he lost a close race to Richard Nixon — the only man in modern American history to win the presidency after having lost a previous presidential election — because the administration had repeatedly demonstrated that it didn't have a clue what to do.

And Nixon won with a third–party firebrand named George Wallace running. Wallace received more than 13% of the vote, with most of those votes coming from the South, and he carried five Southern states that almost certainly would have voted for Nixon if Wallace had not been in the race.

History tells us that the Republicans won five of the next six presidential elections — in large part because they won the battle for the hearts and minds of the voters on the issue of law and order.

I hear many Republicans fretting about Trump running as an independent if denied the GOP nomination. If that happens, the logic says, Hillary Clinton will be the beneficiary just as they allege that her husband was elected because Ross Perot got one–fifth of the popular vote in 1992. I don't think that is true. History shows that third–party candidacies, when they are most appealing to voters, tend to be a problem for whichever party is in power.

Exit–poll surveys in 1992 indicated that, if Perot had not run, Clinton and George H.W. Bush each would have picked up about 40% of his supporters, and the remaining 20% would not have voted at all. The numbers would fluctuate by state, of course, and it is fair to suggest that states where the race between Clinton and Bush was close could have swung the other way if Perot had not been on the ballot. But in the states where Clinton or Bush had decisive leads, it is unlikely that Perot's absence from the race would have meant much.

If the '92 exit polls are correct — and I have neither heard nor seen any evidence that would lead me to believe they are not — I suppose many Republicans believe Bush could have won that 20%, but I'm inclined to think those voters wouldn't have chosen from the major parties' nominees. They were drawn in to the process by Perot and most likely would have receded into the shadows from which they came if he had not been on the ballot. They weren't responsive to Bush or Clinton.

A dozen years before that, in 1980, there was talk right up until Election Day that Rep. John Anderson would siphon off enough votes from both President Jimmy Carter and former Gov. Ronald Reagan to force their race into the House of Representatives. Anderson had run against Reagan in the Republican primaries before deciding to mount a third–party campaign, and he was widely praised as an alternative to the major nominees. But the experts overestimated his influence on the campaign. Anderson won no states and received only 6.6% of the vote.

Perhaps Carter would have won most of Anderson's votes if Anderson had not run as a third–party candidate, but, outside the South, where Carter lost nearly every state but held Reagan under 50% in most, it hardly seems it would have mattered. Reagan won in a landslide.

The issue right now is not whether Trump would fracture the party and allow Hillary Clinton to win next year. The issue for voters is who makes them feel safe. Trump has been successful at that. If his Republican challengers want to be relevant in the 2016 campaign, they will need to address it, too.

Because 2016, like 1968, is going to be about an increasingly insecure nation and how it deals with its greatest fear.

A Glance at the Race for the White House

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Each time we prepare to elect a president, there always seems to be someone seeking a party's nomination who sought it before but fell short. Most of the time, that candidate (or those candidates in especially active presidential election cycles) is said to be taking a different approach this time — presumably because the original approach failed the first time.

The message may be different, or the candidate may choose a different way to convey that message. The latter appears to be what Hillary Clinton is doing. "Clinton plans to forgo the packed rallies that marked her previous campaign," writes the Associated Press' Lisa Lerer, "and focus on smaller round-table events with selected groups of supporters."

Sometimes that is a good idea; other times, not so much. I am skeptical that it will help Clinton avoid questions about her email or acceptance of cash contributions from foreign governments seeking access while she was secretary of State. In the context of previous presidential campaigns, that isn't really surprising. It is frequently — but not always — difficult to know whether changing the message or how the message is presented is the right approach the second time around — until after the campaign is over.

By that time, of course, one need look no further than the election results to decide if the candidate (should he or she win the nomination) made the right choice. If it wasn't, there will be no shortage of scapegoats and other excuses in what boils down to a circular firing squad.

What is more certain these days is that it is difficult for a party to prevail in three consecutive national elections. Some people attribute that to fatigue with the incumbent party. Since the postwar era has coincided with the advent of television — which, in turn, has led to Americans having unprecedented access to a president's daily activities — that makes sense.

And I do think that plays a role in it, but I think it is more complex than that. Now, I'm going to lay a little groundwork here. I apologize in advance if it seems elementary.

There are two kinds of presidential election years — incumbent years and non–incumbent years. An incumbent year is when America has an incumbent president who is eligible to run for another term — and usually does. I think the last such incumbent who chose not to seek another term was Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Three other presidents in the 20th century made the decision not to seek another term when they legally could have — Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, Calvin Coolidge in 1928 and Harry Truman in 1952.

(Truman was president when the 22nd Amendment was ratified. He had served nearly two full terms by 1952, having succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, but the amendment made the specific point that it would not apply to whoever was president upon its ratification.)

Since we always have an incumbent, the matter of eligibility would seem to be the determining factor, but it isn't. LBJ's decision, which was largely the product of the public's increasingly sour mood about the war in Vietnam, not to seek another term as president instantly turned 1968 into a non–incumbent year. That's a year when the incumbent is not on the ballot in the general election, whether by choice or circumstance.

In recent times, non–incumbent years have tended to favor the nominee of the out–of–power party because those years have come when the incumbent usually is ineligible to seek another term.

It wasn't always that way. For whatever reason, it seems to have been largely a byproduct of World War II that parties almost never win three straight national elections. At least, that's when this pattern emerged. Before that, victories tended to come in bunches. Democrats won five straight elections between 1932 and 1948. The Republicans won the three elections prior to that — and 11 of 15 between 1860 and 1916.

Of course, it was after World War II ended when the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two full terms in office was ratified, and that was a game changer. Few presidents were tempted to seek a third term before the amendment was ratified, but it was always a possibility. Since the 22nd Amendment was ratified, it has been generally understood that, after winning his second term, a president gradually slips into irrelevance, essentially becoming a lame duck the day he takes the oath of office for the second time. Maybe that explains the pattern that has emerged in the last 67 years.

Since Harry Truman's "upset" victory in 1948, Americans have voted for the same party's nominees for president three straight times only once — in 1988 when Vice President George H.W. Bush was elected to succeed Ronald Reagan. Otherwise, it has been so predictable you could set your calendar by it.

Bush was helped by the fact that President Reagan was still popular after eight years in office — Gallup had Reagan at 51% approval just before the 1988 election — but the popularity of the incumbent does not necessarily help the nominee of the president's party.

Prior to the 2000 election, Bill Clinton's approval rating was between 59% and 62%. Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, narrowly won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote — in large part because he did not take advantage of Clinton's popularity and political skills during his campaign against George W. Bush.

Of course, if the incumbent's popularity is below 50%, his party's nominee to replace him is probably toast before the convention adjourns. George W. Bush's approval ratings were mostly in the 20s just before the 2008 election, which John McCain lost in a modest landslide.

And Lyndon Johnson's approval rating just before the 1968 election (42%) almost precisely mirrored Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey's share of the popular vote — and 1968 turned out to be a cliffhanger but only because independent candidate George Wallace was on the ballot.

The Day the Wall Fell Down

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Unless you are at least 60 years old today, you probably had no memory on this day in 1989 of a time when the Berlin Wall did not exist. It was 25 years ago today that the wall was brought down, fulfilling Ronald Reagan's famous 1987 challenge to "tear down this wall."

If you are under 30, you almost certainly have no memory of a time when the Berlin Wall did exist.

But, for anyone who remembers most or all of the years between 1961 and 1989, the Berlin Wall was a constant reminder of the tensions between East and West.

It was a fact of life for seven presidents, from John F. Kennedy, whose administration witnessed the construction of the wall in the summer of 1961, to George H.W. Bush, whose administration saw it fall 25 years ago today.

Most Americans — regardless of age — probably had no idea the wall was about to fall, probably had no understanding of the events in that part of the world that were leading to this day. My memory is that it caught most Americans by surprise. They had heard Reagan's plea a couple of years earlier — if they were old enough, they remembered Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in the shadow of the wall two years after its construction — but such speeches were mostly regarded as symbolic, valuable as propaganda for stirring up the masses. Just as the wall itself was a symbol. I guess Americans were conditioned to believe the wall would always exist. The Berlin Wall took on the same kind of mythical aura as the Great Wall of China — with the added value of armed guards. It was there. It would continue to be there. Never mind that it had not always been there.

("Whatever happened to the kind of inspirational presidential oratory that helped bring down that wall — and Soviet communism?" wonders USA Today's Rick Hamson.)

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After it happened, it was easy to see — as it always is — the progression of events that led to that moment. But, before it happened, the collapse of the Berlin Wall was seen as, at best, wishful thinking and, at worst, delusional fantasy.

Personally, I never thought it would happen. I couldn't imagine a world with a unified Berlin. And today I can't imagine a world in which the wall could be resurrected — yet, with Russian aggression in the Ukraine and militant Muslim aggression in the Middle East, one can only wonder if the last 25 years have been merely an interlude.

Freedom, the adage says, isn't free.

Is it possible there could be another wall — perhaps not in Berlin but somewhere else?

A First in Presidential Politics

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"Let me just say, first of all, that I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy."

Rep. Geraldine Ferraro
Oct. 11, 1984

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Thirty years ago tonight, a woman participated in a vice presidential debate for the first time.

Actually, that isn't really as impressive as it sounds. There had been only one vice presidential debate prior to that — between then–Sen. Walter Mondale and then–Sen. Bob Dole in 1976. If Geraldine Ferraro had not been a participant, the debate probably never would have garnered the attention it did.

But it was part of the historic nature of the 1984 campaign. Ferraro, after all, was the first woman to be nominated to a major party's national ticket. Minor parties had nominated women before, but few of them managed to win even 1% of the popular vote. Most were mere footnotes in the annals of presidential politics. Even the first women to seek a major party's presidential nomination — Republican Margaret Chase Smith in 1964 and Democrat Shirley Chisholm in 1972 — were treated more as oddities than legitimate candidates.

Conventional wisdom holds that, in any election, a Democrat can count on winning one–third of the vote, a Republican can count on winning one–third of the vote, and the election will be decided by what that final one–third — the undecided, the uninformed and the easily swayed — choose to do. Consequently, Ferraro knew she would receive more votes for a national office than any woman before her — although, as it turned out, the Democrats lost that last one–third of the vote by a wide margin.

Conventional wisdom also holds that most people don't vote for the running mate. They vote for the candidate at the top of the ticket.

Now, personally, I have never been a big fan of vice presidential debates. What is there to debate? Vice presidents don't make policy. In fact, it is only in the last 40 years that the vice president has been treated as a legitimate and contributing member of the executive branch — but the transition has been a work in progress. Vice presidents still serve, as they always have, as the designated national representatives at foreign weddings and funerals. Vice presidents also preside over the Senate and cast votes when needed to break ties.

(That is why the distinction is made in this year's midterm elections that Republicans need to control 51 seats to take over the Senate whereas the Democrats need to control 50 seats. The decisive vote in a tie in the Senate belongs to the party in the White House because the vice president presides over the Senate.)

Otherwise, their chief responsibility is to stay awake during tedious Senate debates, even if they are battling jet lag from having just returned from a funeral halfway around the world.

But if vice presidential debates focused only on those experiences that qualify a person to be vice president, no one would tune in. After all, who wants to hear people talk for 90 minutes about their experience attending funerals or weddings or how they managed to stay awake through tedious legislative debates?

So vice presidential debates focus on issues that presidents are able to influence — sometimes — and other times are not able to influence. In short, a vice presidential debate is predicated on the assumption that one of the participants will one day become president, by assassination or election or maybe even resignation, and, consequently, it is necessary to know the candidates' views on abortion and guns.

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Actually, the notion that it is inevitable that a vice president will one day be president is absurd. Forty–seven men have served as vice president; fourteen went on to become president. That's less than 30% — and most of them became president following the death of the incumbent. It is by no means certain that they would have been elected president on their own. Five only served out their predecessors' unexpired terms, then faded into obscurity. Only four (that's less than 9%) were elected to the presidency without the benefit of having ascended after the death or resignation of someone else — and two of them were elected before presidential elections started involving a popular vote in the early 19th century.

The vice presidency simply never has been the stepping stone to the presidency that you might think it would be.

Many vice presidents have gone on to seek the presidency on their own. Many failed to win their party's nominations — and all who did win the nomination after 1836 and before 1988 were defeated (with the exception of 1968, when Richard Nixon, running as a former vice president, won both the Republican nomination and the general election).

George H.W. Bush, of course, had sought the presidency before — in 1980, he had been Ronald Reagan's top rival for the Republican presidential nomination before being chosen to be Reagan's running mate. Ferraro, however, never had sought the presidency. She had barely sought the House seat she occupied, having won three terms, and was barely known outside her district.

So why was it important? It was important for Democrats to keep the momentum going after Mondale's first debate with Reagan. The polls showed the Democratic ticket trailing the Republican ticket by a wide margin — correctly, too, as it turned out — and the Democrats' hopes for victory depended on a perception of sustained momentum.

Bush's objective was simple — halt the Democrats' momentum, then Reagan could close the deal in the rematch with Mondale later that month.

My memory of that night is that neither candidate was the clear winner — which, in some ways, was a victory for Bush because it supported opposition arguments that the Democrats' momentum had stalled. If Bush had been the clear loser, the Democrats would have had momentum decisively on their side when Mondale faced Reagan in their second and final debate a week and a half later. But the absence of a clear winner changed the conversation.

For the next couple of decades, women were frequently mentioned as potential running mates for presumptive nominees — but such talk was mostly to appease women voters. A vice presidential debate has been part of every presidential election since 1984, but Ferraro remained the only member of the club of major–party female nominees for almost a quarter of a century.

It was a week shy of 24 years later — on Oct. 3, 2008 — that a female nominee participated in another vice presidential debate. That was the day that then–Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the first female nominee on a Republican ticket, and then–Sen. Joe Biden met in their only debate of the 2008 campaign.

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Once again, the conclusion was that the debate had been a draw. As nearly as I could tell, the 2008 vice presidential debate, like the one in 1984, had no influence on the outcome of the race.

Happy 90th Birthday, Jimmy Carter

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I have been studying the presidency practically since I learned to read (really), and one of the first things I discovered in my very early studies was that only two American presidents had lived to the age of 90 — John Adams and Herbert Hoover.

They lived in different centuries so there is no way they could have run against each other.

I remember being very sad when Harry Truman died. He was within two years of making it to 90, and I was pulling for him. As a devotee of American presidential trivia, I hoped he would join that exclusive club.

It isn't that exclusive anymore. People live longer now than they used to. Not everyone does, of course, but, by and large, each generation does live longer than the one that came before. And among American presidents, the 90–and–Over Club has now added its sixth member, Jimmy Carter. He was born on Oct. 1, 1924.

Earlier this year, George H.W. Bush celebrated his 90th birthday. The other two men to join that club were Ronald Reagan in 2001 and Gerald Ford in 2003.

Considering how the club has grown, I began thinking about various firsts that these milestone birthdays created. For example, the first election in American history that featured two major party nominees who would both live to be 90 was the 1976 campaign between Carter and Ford. (Ford's running mate, Bob Dole, turned 90 last year, and Carter's running mate, Walter Mondale, is 86. If he lives until January 2018, the '76 campaign will be the first to feature four nominees who all lived to be 90.)

It will always be the first such election because all the major party nominees who preceded Ford and Carter are deceased.

Carter's milestone made him the first president to run against two candidates from the opposing party who both lived to be 90; he beat Ford in '76 and lost to Reagan in '80.

If Mondale lives until January 2018, Reagan will become the second president to run against two nominees from the opposing party who lived to be 90. He will be the first man to run against candidates who were destined to live to 90 in three consecutive elections — he challenged Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976.

We'll have to wait awhile to find out if Bush ran against someone who lived to be 90. The candidate he defeated for the presidency in 1988, Michael Dukakis, is 80 and won't turn 90 until November 2023 — and the candidate who defeated Bush four years later, Bill Clinton, won't turn 90 until 2036.

Of course, if Clinton lives to be 90, the 1996 campaign will join the list of elections that featured nominees who reached the 90th–birthday milestone since Clinton's opponent in that campaign was Bob Dole.

Carter has already set a record for the longest post–presidency — more than 33 years now. He surpassed Hoover in September 2012.

I figure that record is safe. Bush is his nearest competition, and he would have to live another 12 years to claim that record. Of course, if he does, he'll be the first American president who lived to be 100.

LBJ's Daisy Commercial Changed Everything

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Less than a year ago, I wrote that Lee Atwater deserved much of the credit for our present state of polarization, thanks to the way he ran George H.W. Bush's national campaign 26 years ago.

But I guess credit for the template for divisive modern political advertising goes to Lyndon Johnson and his 1964 campaign staff. They were responsible for a commercial that is remembered as the "daisy commercial." It had its one and only airing 50 years ago today.

It showed a little girl plucking the petals from a flower, as small children do, and counting. The girl who was shown in the commercial was 2 years old, and she was observed in a very serene, pastoral setting.

As she counted to 10 — haltingly and, at times, out of sequence, which is understandable with a child that age — an adult voice began a missile launch countdown in the background, and the camera zoomed in on the girl's face until the pupil of her eye filled the screen.

That was followed by a mushroom cloud — and a snippet from one of Lyndon Johnson's speeches.

"These are the stakes," Johnson said. "To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die."

"Fifty years later, the visual is startling — even shocking," writes John Rash for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "But just as jarring are the words."

Another voice — I've heard it was sportscaster Chris Schenkel's (but I heard Schenkel call football games when I was growing up, and the voice in the commercial never sounded like his voice to me) — then said, "Vote for President Johnson on Nov. 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."

The message was clear. Johnson's opponent, Barry Goldwater, could not be trusted with nuclear weapons.

"You can love 'Daisy' for its power or hate it for its excess — I both love it and hate it — but it changed political advertising forever," wrote Drew Babb in the Washington Post.

It cannot be denied that the daisy commercial was an effective reminder that Goldwater had voted against the nuclear test ban treaty.

Babb, who teaches political advertising at American University and is president of the firm Drew Babb & Associates, went on to list the ways it changed political advertising. The logic is hard to fault.

• "It gave politicians a license to kill."
  
  Babb observed that "[e]arlier political commercials were overwhelmingly upbeat." He pointed out that, only four years earlier, an advertisement for John F. Kennedy featured Frank Sinatra singing a revised version of "High Hopes."
  
  Dwight Eisenhower's commercials were relentlessly upbeat.

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  Of course, television was still in its infancy then. As it grew up, it grew teeth. Fangs, in fact.
• "By all means, trash the tropes."
  
  The rules were clearly different. Johnson's ad agency was largely made up of "New York street brawlers" accustomed to competing over products, not politics, and they did what they knew.
• "Overreacting can boomerang."
  
  That is a fact that both parties should keep in mind today. Advertising has become much more sophisticated in half a century, but the experience of 1964 should not be forgotten. Republicans howled about the ad, and Johnson's campaign pulled it after its only showing 50 years ago today. But the networks reported on the Republican reaction and, so the viewers would know what the fuss was about, ran the ad over and over again.
  
  If they hadn't seen it when it aired as a commercial, they were bound to have seen it when it was shown repeatedly on the nightly news. Consequently, the message was reinforced — and almost certainly contributed to Johnson's landslide victory that fall.

Do you think the theme is outdated because America is the world's only remaining superpower? A group called Secure America doesn't. It recently unveiled a commercial called "Daisy 2," and it was clearly inspired by the commercial that ran 50 years ago.

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It pulls no punches. Here is what the narrator says:

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"These are the stakes. We either stand up to supporters of terrorism, or we and our allies risk losing the freedom we cherish. We must not let the jihadist government of Iran get a nuclear bomb. President Obama has an opportunity to stop it. But he is failing. Join with us. Let's secure America — now."

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The Coronation of Ronald Reagan

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"Isn't our choice really not one of left or right, but of up or down? Down through the welfare state to statism, to more and more government largesse accompanied always by more government authority, less individual liberty and, ultimately, totalitarianism, always advanced as for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society."

Ronald Reagan
Acceptance speech
Aug. 23, 1984

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I wasn't a fan of Ronald Reagan when he was president. I had the opportunity to vote for him, but I didn't. I don't regret my choice. At the time, I was a Democrat, and I wouldn't have thought of voting for anyone other than the Democrat in any race. It's how I was brought up.

Even if I had not been brought up by diehard Democrats, that was age–appropriate for that time in my life, as I understand it. Winston Churchill reportedly said, "Anyone who isn't a liberal by age 20 has no heart. Anyone who isn't a conservative by age 40 has no brain." (Note: I say "reportedly" because I have found no proof that Churchill actually said or wrote those sentences. I don't know who did, but I do know that I have heard those sentences all my life, and they seem to be one of those unattributable truisms. Whoever said or wrote it was spot on in his/her evaluation of the progression of life.)

Well, I don't know what all that says about me. As I have acknowledged before, I am now an independent. I feel like Joe Piscopo, who recently wrote that he wasn't ready to embrace the Republican Party, but "[i]n good conscience ... I can't continue to call myself a Democrat."

That is reminiscent of what Reagan frequently told his audiences — that he had been a Democrat as a young man but became a Republican after the Democrats moved away from the things that drew him to the party in the first place. He would conclude his story by asking his audiences, "Did I leave the Democratic Party? Or did the Democratic Party leave me?"

I didn't understand Reagan's appeal to ordinary Americans. I suppose I bought the line of thinking that insisted Reagan was hopelessly nostalgic about a simpler time in American history and determined to revive that time instead of leading the nation forward into the future.

I couldn't understand Reagan's appeal. I knew people who voted for Reagan 30 years ago. Everyone did. He ended up winning 49 states and receiving more than 58% of the popular vote in the last real landslide in American history. Oh, I know that there have been times when candidates have won by "landslide" — even though they were no such thing. Historically, a landslide has occurred when one candidate received more than 55% of the popular vote and more than 400 electoral votes from 40 states or more.

Landslides were almost routine from 1964 to 1984. Three of the six presidential elections held in that time fit that description, but none of the seven elections held since 1984 have. Some have been called landslides, but none truly were. And, as evenly divided as America is today, I doubt that we will see a landslide like the one from 1984 in the near future — unless an extraordinarily charismatic candidate emerges.

To be honest, I never thought Reagan was all that charismatic, but, clearly, a large number of Americans did. In hindsight, I see some things differently than I did at the time, which is understandable, as I was quite young, but one thing that I have always known was that Reagan was an effective speaker. I didn't know why he was so effective at that time.

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I was always envious of that. He had a folksy kind of charm that made many people in 1980 realize that he was not the warmongering ogre his critics said he was. There were a lot of horror stories spread about Reagan that seemed less and less valid to people the longer he was in office. There is no doubt that many of the things his opponents said about him were true, but reasonable people look at the record and see that Reagan was president for eight years — and he never launched a nuclear attack on anyone. His detractors warned that he would have America in a nuclear war within days of taking office. Once they got past that image, they wondered how many other falsehoods they had been told.

As a Democrat, I hoped he would be replaced when he sought a second term, that his election had been a mistake that voters would redress. But, on this night 30 years ago, when I watched him accept the Republican nomination in Dallas, I knew he would win in November.

I don't know how I knew. But I didn't tell any of my Democrat friends the conclusion I had reached. I didn't want to discourage them.

Thirty years ago tonight, Reagan told his fellow Americans that the choice was simple — it was between "their government of pessimism, fear and limits, or ours of hope, confidence and growth.

"Their government sees people only as members of groups," he continued. "Ours serves all the people of America as individuals. ... Theirs lives by promises, the bigger the better. We offer proven, workable answers.

On the surface, that sounds good. No American disagrees with that statement, right? At least, as long as "theirs" and "ours" remain undefined. It's only when you go deeper into a candidate's philosophy on individual issues that he/she can legitimately be labeled conservative or liberal.

I knew people who voted for Reagan who probably disagreed with him 70–80% of the time, but they voted for him because they thought he was a strong leader. I understood that mentality in 1980, when Reagan ran against the discredited Jimmy Carter, who rode a populist wave into the White House four years earlier. Carter was widely perceived to be a failure. Again, in hindsight, I am inclined to believe that anyone who got the Republican nomination that year was destined to win.

I disagreed with the majority's assessment, but I honestly believed Reagan's victory in 1980 had been a fluke.

But, by 1984, Reagan had a track record. It was one with which I was not impressed, but it clearly impressed others, and his acceptance speech was filled with references that resonated with his listeners, both those in the convention hall in Dallas and the millions watching at home.

Such as the misery index, a calculation Democrats used in Carter's campaign against President Ford in 1976.

"[A]dding the unemployment and inflation rates, [Democrats] got what they called a misery index," Reagan said. "In '76 it came to 12.5%. They declared the incumbent had no right to seek re–election with that kind of a misery index. Well, four years ago, in the 1980 election, they didn't mention the misery index, possibly because it was then over 20%. And do you know something? They won't mention it in this election, either. It's down to 11.6 and dropping."

Reagan never stooped to name calling. His rhetoric was almost always positive; he tended to save his put–downs for himself. Perhaps that was what people found so appealing.

It may be why he could get away with blatantly emotional rhetoric, as he did near the end of his acceptance speech when he spoke of repairs that were being made to the Statue of Liberty.

"Just this past Fourth of July, the torch atop the Statue of Liberty was hoisted down for replacement," Reagan observed. I will never forget the cameras scanning the crowd of delegates and coming to rest on the face of a young woman, a delegate standing on the floor of the convention hall, looking up at Reagan, her hands clasped in a prayerful pose, tears streaming down her cheeks as Reagan said, "We can be forgiven for thinking that maybe it was just worn out from lighting the way to freedom for 17 million new Americans. So, now we'll put up a new one."

I thought that was astonishingly corny. I was even more astonished when I realized just how many heart strings Reagan had tugged with that tale.

Reagan was no fluke.

Still in Nixon's Grip

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Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas eulogizes Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994.

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I will always remember the moment when, 20 years ago today, I heard that Richard Nixon had died.

It wasn't one of those milestone moments people ask about decades later — like where one was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Nixon had suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. It was not unexpected, and, besides, at 81, he was nearly twice as old as JFK had been when he died.

Still, you must understand. Nixon was president when I was a child. I remember seeing war protests on TV in which hate and anger were mostly what were on display. Judging from the defensive responses I saw and heard coming from the Nixon White House, it was clear there was no love lost between the sides. I never really understood why so many people were surprised when the extent of Nixon's response came out via the secret tape recordings that ultimately destroyed his presidency.

It all was a logical reaction — from Nixon's paranoid perspective.

Anyway, Nixon really shaped and defined the times in which I grew up. When he was president, I honestly couldn't imagine a time when he would not be president. I could not imagine a time when America would be free of his grip.

And then he resigned. The unthinkable not only became thinkable, it became fact.

Nearly 20 years later, he was dead. I remember feeling astonished by the relentless passage of time.

There have been seven presidencies since Nixon left the White House. Five of them, including the incumbent in 1994, already had become entries in American history texts by the time Nixon died.

And now 20 years have passed since Nixon's death. Two more presidents have been elected; a third will be elected in a couple of years. I am humbled anew by the speed of the passage of time.

Five years ago, on the eve of the 15th anniversary of Nixon's death, I wrote that he was "deeply flawed." I still believe that.

I believed that 20 years ago tonight when I heard he had died. I was living in Norman, Okla. It was a Friday evening, and I was watching my TV. Suddenly, the channel I was watching interrupted the broadcast with the news bulletin that Nixon had died.

He had been in the news all week — since suffering a stroke on Monday. At first, it seemed likely he would recover, even though his movement and vision were impaired, but he lapsed into a coma and died that Friday.

It was the first time a former president had died in more than two decades. It doesn't happen often. Only two former presidents have died since Nixon died, but it could happen at any time. The fact that two former presidents are in their late 80s (Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, who will be 90 in June) makes the likelihood of another presidential funeral in the near future a distinct possibility; Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are in their 60s and seem to be in good health, but they could be vulnerable as well.

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In keeping with his wishes, Nixon did not receive a full state funeral, which would have called for his body to lie in state at the Capitol and probably some kind of funeral service in Washington. Everything was done in California. The five presidents who had succeeded him were there, along with many of his foes and allies from his years in Washington.

Both of his vice presidents were there. Gerald Ford, of course, had succeeded him when he resigned, but Spiro Agnew had been his first vice president, and he was there to pay his respects.

It was, I believe, the last public appearance by Ronald Reagan. His affliction with Alzheimer's was announced that year, and he was the next former president to die, a little more than 10 years later.

On the 20th anniversary of Nixon's death, it seems that no one is writing about him. He has been left behind with the other relics from the 20th century.

Ironically, Nixon's presidency continues to influence American policy and American spending in the 21st century. The president who sought "peace with honor" in Vietnam launched a war on drugs that America continues to fight and lose because it can't seem to find an honorable way out — and Americans continue to die because of it.

In so many ways, America is still in his grip.

Failing to Seize the Momentum

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If Dan Quayle's debate with Lloyd Bentsen a week earlier was the low point of the 1988 campaign for the Republican ticket, what happened 25 years ago tonight may have been the low point — certainly, it was one of the low points — for the Democrats.

The presidential nominees, Vice President George H.W. Bush and former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, met in Los Angeles' Pauley Pavilion for their final debate 25 years ago tonight.

And CNN's Bernard Shaw started things with the only question that anyone would remember: "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"

No one would remember Dukakis' answer, only that it was delivered in a flat monotone that seemed to lack the emotion most people would have expected of someone who was speaking of the (hypothetical) rape and murder of a loved one.

For the record, Dukakis' answer focused on statistics that were relevant to capital punishment — and showed why, he believed, it was ineffective. There were no gaffes, no sound bites that could be played endlessly.

It was all a matter of perception.

Like Richard Nixon in his first debate encounter with John F. Kennedy nearly 30 years earlier, Dukakis came into the debate on the heels of an illness. Dukakis was sick with the flu and actually spent much of that day in bed. His debate performance was generally poor, and it reinforced the impression that many voters had of him as cold and distant.

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But, even though his performance was not particularly good — the consensus was that Dukakis simply failed to seize the momentum in the debate — there was nothing fundamentally wrong with his responses, no glaring faux pas. Read it for yourself:

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"No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. We've done so in my own state. And it's one of the reasons why we have had the biggest drop in crime of any industrial state in America; why we have the lowest murder rate of any industrial state in America. But we have work to do in this nation. We have work to do to fight a real war, not a phony war, against drugs. And that's something I want to lead, something we haven't had over the course of the past many years, even though the vice president has been at least allegedly in charge of that war. We have much to do to step up that war, to double the number of drug enforcement agents, to fight both here and abroad, to work with our neighbors in this hemisphere. And I want to call a hemispheric summit just as soon after the 20th of January as possible to fight that war. But we also have to deal with drug education prevention here at home. And that's one of the things that I hope I can lead personally as the president of the United States. We've had great success in my own state. And we've reached out to young people and their families and been able to help them by beginning drug education and prevention in the early elementary grades. So we can fight this war, and we can win this war. And we can do so in a way that marshals our forces, that provides real support for state and local law enforcement officers who have not been getting that support, and do it in a way which will bring down violence in this nation, will help our youngsters to stay away from drugs, will stop this avalanche of drugs that's pouring into the country, and will make it possible for our kids and our families to grow up in safe and secure and decent neighborhoods."

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Bush, on the other hand, didn't perform particularly well that night. But that didn't matter. The post–debate conversation focused on Dukakis' passionless response to a question about the hypothetical rape and murder of his wife — and little else.

It is ironic that the fatal blow to the Dukakis candidacy came in the form of a fictional attack on his wife. Truly irresponsible — and false — stories were spread about Kitty Dukakis during the campaign, including one that held that Mrs. Dukakis had burned an American flag in a Vietnam War protest. That one supposedly was spread by a U.S. senator, but Republican strategist Lee Atwater reportedly started it.

The Dukakis campaign had survived it all — not always well or gracefully — including self–inflicted wounds like Dukakis' tank ride in September, but the question about Kitty Dukakis sealed the deal.

Before the debate, it was often said that Dukakis needed a dramatic debate performance to swing the momentum his way. His performance was decidedly not dramatic, at least not in a positive way, and the polls reflected it — not immediately, but within a week — and the momentum moved irreversibly away from the Massachusetts Democrat.

'You're No Jack Kennedy'

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"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Lloyd Bentsen
Vice presidential debate
Oct. 5, 1988

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In the annals of vice presidential debates, there are few chapters — so the competition for the most memorable moment isn't too great.

But if I had to choose the most memorable moment in a vice presidential debate, I would have to pick the moment 25 years ago tonight when Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas told Republican Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana that he was no Jack Kennedy.

As I say, there isn't much competition for most memorable moment from a vice presidential debate. I suppose you could include some moments from the 1992 debate — but they were really more noteworthy for what they said about the ill–prepared Admiral Stockdale, who mused, "Who am I? Why am I here?" and muttered something about a "ping pong match."

Otherwise, though, there really isn't much.

The Bentsen–Quayle debate remains famous — or infamous, depending upon one's point of view — because of one line — Bentsen's famous putdown of Quayle.

It was devastating.

My memory of that debate is not of the pre–debate expectations. Bentsen, more than a quarter of a century older than Quayle, had more than 20 years of congressional experience under his belt (and went on to serve as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton); it was believed by many that he compensated for Michael Dukakis' relative lack of experience.

Quayle, on the other hand, had a little more than a decade of congressional experience, and there was a perception that he lacked the maturity to take over as president if necessary.

It was generally treated as a given that Bentsen was more qualified to be president than was Quayle. That was the elephant in the living room on this night 25 years ago. It made expectations impossibly high for Bentsen and absurdly low for Quayle.

Based on pre–debate comments I heard, all Quayle had to do was show up to exceed expectations while Bentsen needed to do something almost messianic to avoid being perceived a failure.

From the very start, Quayle was put on the defensive when he was asked why he had "not made a more substantial impression" on voters.

It was clear at times that he had prepared statements in advance that he planned to use when the topic of qualifications came up, and he used one early: "If qualifications alone are going to be the issue in this campaign, George Bush has more qualifications than Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen combined."

Of course, both candidates had lines they had been working on for their single debate. Quayle's qualification to be president had been a subject of discussion since Vice President George H.W. Bush chose him to be his running mate. Everyone knew that the issue of experience would dominate the questioning. And it did.

Bentsen was eager to fan the flames. "This debate tonight is not about the qualifications for the vice presidency," he said early. "The debate is whether or not Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen are qualified to be president of the United States."

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The memorable moment came about halfway through when Tom Brokaw asked Quayle to "cite the experience that you had in Congress."

Quayle said he had as much congressional experience as John F. Kennedy had when he sought the presidency in 1960, which was technically correct, but it set up Bentsen better than he probably ever dreamed during his debate prep. In hindsight — possibly as soon as that moment — I concluded that Bentsen had that line ready, that it was not spontaneous, and he was planning to spring it — or something similar — when the time was right.

Quayle's comparison of himself to Kennedy was the right time. And Bentsen jumped on it like Babe Ruth swinging at an underhanded pitch. He probably couldn't believe his good fortune.

"You're no Jack Kennedy." The mind recalls the image of Quayle's face on the television screen as Bentsen's voice could be heard delivering the line. Quayle had that "caught in the headlights" look on his face — or, at least, that is how it was perceived at the time. My own opinion is that it was the look of one who knows the die has been cast.

Quayle protested that Bentsen's comment was uncalled for. Bentsen replied that it had been Quayle who invited the comparison.

Nothing else that was said that night mattered. Bentsen had won the debate. Print journalists had their lead paragraph, and broadcast journalists had their sound bite.

And Bentsen had his triumph, but it was Quayle who had the last laugh. A month later, the Bush–Quayle ticket defeated the Dukakis–Bentsen ticket in a landslide.

Spinning Willie Horton

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It is my opinion that what happened on this day 25 years ago was what drove a racial wedge into the heart of America that persists to modern times.

Well, that may be a little extreme. A lot of people and a lot of events over a long period of time have contributed to the polarized state of race relations in this country. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that what happened on this day a quarter century ago played a key role in the erosion of modern race relations.

On this day in 1988, the first of the so–called "Willie Horton ads" aired on TV.

If you're under 35, let me tell you who Willie Horton is/was.

Willie Horton is a black man, a native of South Carolina who was convicted of a 1974 murder in Massachusetts and sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole.

However, in 1986, he was released as part of a weekend furlough program, but he didn't return when the weekend was over. Less than a year later, he raped a woman in Maryland after attacking her fiance. He was captured and convicted, then sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years. The judge who sentenced him pointedly refused to return him to Massachusetts.

Horton is still incarcerated in Maryland.

Michael Dukakis, the Democrats' 1988 nominee for the presidency, was governor of Massachusetts when Horton was released. Dukakis did not start the furlough program, but he did support it.

The original policy began under a Republican governor in 1972, but first–degree murderers weren't eligible. After the state's Supreme Court ruled that the privilege should be extended to first–degree murderers, the state's legislature passed a bill denying furloughs to such convicts.

Dukakis vetoed the bill, and the furlough program remained in effect until 1988.

So Dukakis clearly bore some responsibility for the program, and the first to mention it during the 1988 campaign actually was one of Dukakis' rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee. Gore brought it up during a debate prior to the New York primary, but he asked a general question and never mentioned Horton's name.

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The name was known to the Bush campaign, especially campaign manager Lee Atwater, who was responsible for most of the negative campaigning the Republicans did that year. Late that spring, a group of Republican consultants met with a focus group made up of Democrats who had voted for Reagan four years earlier, and they told the consultants they needed take a negative approach to Dukakis.

For Atwater, it was like a mandate to do whatever it took to win, but he needed the green light to proceed — and he got it but gradually. He wasn't the original spin doctor — that concept originated in the fields of public relations and advertising — but, in his lifetime, he was probably the most effective at applying the spin doctor's tactics to politics.

In June, Bush mentioned Horton by name in a speech to the Texas Republican convention.

And 25 years ago today, Americans for Bush, part of the National Security Political Action Committee, first aired a commercial called "Weekend Passes," which identified Horton and what he had done while free.

The ad was taken off the air two weeks later — on the day that Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen met in the vice presidential debate. The Bush campaign began running its own ad, "Revolving Door," which did not mention Horton by name.

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But it didn't have to. His name was already pretty well known around the country by then.

Most of the "inmates" in the commercial were white — but there were a couple of strategically positioned black actors.

It was a not–so–subtle reminder of Horton and his criminal record.

Bentsen and civil rights leaders criticized Bush's campaign and called the ads racist. Bush denied the charge.

While I definitely think race was used by the Republicans in 1988, the fact is that it was only one aspect of the Bush campaign, which was very aggressive and extremely negative. The Bush campaign of 1988 was not above distorting the facts, any facts, and Dukakis was simply ineffective at countering.

For example, the Republicans ran a negative commercial about the condition of Boston Harbor, implying that it was Dukakis' fault when the truth was that the policies that created the situation were promoted by administrations of both parties.

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In 1988, the Republicans had been on the ropes before the conventions, and they played hardball during the fall campaign — even after polls showed public sentiment swinging in their direction.

The turning point may have come a week before the first Horton ad made its debut, when the Republican campaign turned Michael Dukakis' ill–fated tank ride into a devastating commercial.

The Republicans held nothing back in 1988.

And Atwater especially wasn't above using anything to win. He insisted he would "strip the bark off the little bastard (Dukakis)" and "make Willie Horton his running mate."

Atwater certainly bears some responsibility for the state of modern race relations in America. And, near the end of his life in 1991, he did seem to be trying to make amends in a LIFE magazine article in which he apologized to Dukakis for the "naked cruelty" of the 1988 campaign.

But even then and under those circumstances, I was inclined to take anything that Atwater said with a grain of salt.

Ed Rollins, manager of the Reagan–Bush re–election campaign, confirmed the necessity of such a policy in a book about Atwater in which he said this about the last days of Atwater's life:

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"[Atwater] was telling this story about how a Living Bible was what was giving him faith and I said to Mary (Matalin), 'I really, sincerely hope that he found peace.' She said, 'Ed, when we were cleaning up his things afterwards, the Bible was still wrapped in the cellophane and had never been taken out of the package,' which just told you everything there was. He was spinning right to the end."

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Atwater probably would tell you that perception is everything.

A Ride in a Tank

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The Saturday Night Live parodies of presidential debates sometimes seem like they've been a part of presidential campaigns forever — even though the SNL parodies, like the debates themselves, haven't been regular parts of presidential campaigns for quite 40 years yet.

Twenty–five years ago, the debate parodies were still evolving, but they had already established themselves as truly (and humorously) insightful. And I thought one of the best examples came in a 1988 parody when, after Dana Carvey gave a spot–on impression of a typical George H.W. Bush meandering, cliche–ridden response, Jon Lovitz (as Michael Dukakis) shrugged his shoulders on rebuttal and said, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."

There were times that fall when I couldn't help wondering the same thing.

And then there were days like this one when I knew why he lost. For it was on this day in 1988 that Dukakis took his ill–advised ride in a tank, presumably to show the voters he was tough, not a wimp, but he only managed to look ridiculous.

It happened at the General Dynamics Land Systems plant in Sterling Heights, Mich. Dukakis came to participate in a photo opp in an M1 Abrams tank.

As I say, the idea probably was to make Dukakis look tough and assertive, but he never really looked comfortable — sort of like Calvin Coolidge when he did a 1920s photo opp in a Native American headdress.

It was a disaster for Dukakis but a bounty for Bush. The Bush campaign of 1988 — under the leadership of Lee Atwater — never hesitated to exploit a perceived weakness in the opposition.

And, to misquote a memorable line from Saddam Hussein, Dukakis' tank ride was the mother of all political weaknesses.

The Willie Horton–inspired commercials (of which I will have more to say next week) get most of the attention in the accounts of that campaign, and they certainly deserve their own chapter in the history of race relations in America, but the Dukakis–in–the–tank commercial may have been the most effective of the campaign because it so neatly capitalized on everything that made voters uneasy about the Democrats' nominee.

He was perceived as stiff and passionless, a typical wishy–washy, appeasing liberal when it came to things like national defense.

At a time when voters were having to select the successor for Ronald Reagan (who, even in his late 70s, was perceived as being macho, a cowboy, standing tall on the world's stage) being tough and assertive was a clear plus — but being a phony was a definite minus. Dukakis came across as being phony, as not being a genuine leader.

And Dukakis' photo opp wound up reinforcing the negative image the Dukakis campaign intended to disprove.

In other words, you can't smear lipstick on a pig and call it a trophy wife.

Read My Lips

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Twenty–five years ago tonight, George H.W. Bush delivered his first presidential nomination acceptance speech.

He had delivered two vice presidential acceptance speeches — when he was nominated to be Ronald Reagan's running mate. But this was his first presidential nomination acceptance speech.

He may well have won the presidency — and simultaneously doomed his re–election bid — with a single pledge he made in the convention hall in New Orleans — "Read my lips. No new taxes." The polls wouldn't reflect the shift in popular support until a few weeks later, but I have no doubt that what Bush said on this night 25 years ago played a significant role in his eventual triumph.

It clearly played a role in his defeat four years later.

I understood why he said it, and I understood why he broke his promise as president.

To put this into historical perspective, the American voters had not given the presidency to the nominees of the same party in three straight elections since the days of Franklin Roosevelt.

Until that time, it happened fairly regularly; FDR himself was elected president in four straight elections. But since World War II, voters had not stayed with the same party in more than two consecutive elections — no matter how popular the incumbent was.

In 1988, the general consensus was that Reagan could have won a third term if he had been permitted to run. But he was limited to the two terms he had served.

That left the Republican nomination up for grabs, and Bush did as every incumbent president or vice president (when the president was prohibited from doing so) had done for more than 35 years — he sought his party's nomination. But so did others, including Sen. Bob Dole (who would be his party's nominee eight years later).

Although he had been vice president under Reagan for eight years, Bush had never persuaded the party's conservatives that he was really one of them. Not when Reagan — grudgingly — named Bush as his running mate in 1980.

Not even in his eight years of loyal service as vice president (during which Bush frequently supported policies he had opposed as a candidate for the GOP nomination in 1980) did he earn their support, let alone their respect.

He felt he had made a gesture to that wing of the party when, in what was widely called his first presidential–level decision, he chose Dan Quayle to be his running mate, but it had been met with ridicule.

So when it came time to deliver his acceptance speech, he needed something that would stir up the conservatives, a line that would remind them of Reagan and, at the same time, show them that Bush had learned some things as Reagan's apprentice and was ready to assume command.

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"I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, 'Read my lips: no new taxes.' "

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That "Read my lips: no new taxes" thing was a good line, written by speech writer Peggy Noonan, who had crafted some winning speeches for Reagan during his presidency.

"It was a strong, decisive, bold statement," wrote TIME in 2008, "and you don't need a history degree to see where this is going."

No, you didn't. After Bush made his speech, the poll numbers began to turn in his favor — and the previously unthinkable, that Bush would defeat Dukakis, started to seem possible.

Dan Quayle's Coming-Out Party

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Twenty–five years ago today, Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana was introduced as Vice President George H.W. Bush's choice for a running mate.

And the focus at the Republican convention in New Orleans shifted almost immediately from speculation about the identity of Bush's running mate to skepticism of the choice.

"This was supposed to be his showcase week," lamented Ed Rollins, manager of the 1984 Reagan–Bush campaign that carried 49 states.

Rollins wasn't the only alarmed Republican. About a month earlier, just after the Democrats' convention, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis led Bush by 17 points.

By the time the voters went to the polls in November, Bush had overtaken Dukakis and wound up winning by 12 points, perhaps the most remarkable reversal in presidential politics in modern times.

But on this day in 1988 — and in the days that followed — there was considerable gloom in Republican circles and considerable glee in Democratic ones.

Most presidential tickets get some kind of bounce — even a modest one — from their party's convention, and the Bush–Quayle ticket did get a lift.

But there were doubts it would happen while the convention was in progress. And even after polls began to report that the shift was occurring, there were those who believed it wouldn't last.

The Republican gathering in New Orleans was supposed to present the "real" George Bush to the American people. With his announcement 25 years ago today that Quayle would be his running mate, the "real" George Bush may well have been revealed — for good or ill.

It certainly showed his sensitivity to public perception.

By 1988, there were growing concerns about the age of the team leading the executive branch. Outgoing President Ronald Reagan was in his late 70s, and Bush was in his 60s.

There were those who said the Republican Party needed to present a younger face to attract younger voters. I always felt that Bush's selection of Quayle was a clear indication that the vice president was listening to those voices.

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"I'm proud to have Dan Quayle at my side," Bush would say — and I am certain there were times in the next four years when Bush regretted making that statement almost as much he must have regretted the "no new taxes" pledge he made a couple of nights later.

Although I often disagreed with Bush, I had to admit that I admired the facts that he didn't pass the buck on his tax reversal, and he stood by his vice president in spite of frequent suggestions that what his campaign for re–election really needed was a new running mate.

When Quayle was introduced as Bush's running mate 25 years ago today — and two days later, when he accepted the nomination — he was whooping and hollering and bouncing around like a preschooler on a sugar binge.

His performances invited ridicule from the late–night TV guys and contributed to the general perception that he wasn't especially bright.

That perception hardened as the nominees entered the fall campaign. Quayle had his debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen for which to prepare; that debate is remembered, of course, for Quayle's comparison of his political experience to that of John F. Kennedy when he sought the presidency nearly 30 years before and Bentsen's rebuttal that Quayle was "no Jack Kennedy."

But even before that debate, Quayle was contributing to his own poor public image by making remarks like this — "The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. No, not our nation's, but in World War II. I mean, we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history" — at a mid–September press conference.

In hindsight, it's hard to imagine that Bush reversed his fortunes with that convention. But he did, or at least he began the process, and it really had nothing to do with Quayle. It had a lot more to do with the famous pledge not to raise taxes that he made in his acceptance speech. That was what the delegates wanted to hear.

It had a lot to do with the fact that Reagan was a popular president who couldn't seek a third term. As far as most of the voters were concerned in 1988, the lesser half of the Reagan–Bush ticket was better than nothing.

And it didn't matter to them who his running mate was. Sure, Quayle was a nuisance and a bit of an embarrassment, but that wasn't particularly important.

The Democrats tried to make Quayle an issue in the '88 campaign, but it didn't really take until four years later — after 3½ years of Quayle's verbal missteps in office.

The National Debut of the Comeback Kid

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"I felt as if the speech was a 200–pound rock I was pushing up a hill. I later joked that I knew I was in trouble when, at the 10–minute mark, the American Samoan delegation started roasting a pig."

Bill Clinton
My Life (2004)

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When this day dawned 25 years ago, it is probably safe to say that most Americans did not know who Bill Clinton was.

I did because I lived in Arkansas. I grew up there, and, on this day in 1988, Clinton had been governor of the state for a total of more than seven years (not continuously). He had been the state's attorney general for a couple of years prior to becoming governor.

But outside of Arkansas, most people, as I say, probably had not heard of him. That would change before this day was over, though — and not necessarily in a good way, either.

In his presidential memoirs, Clinton wrote that "[a] couple of months before [the Democratic] convention opened in Atlanta, [presidential nominee–to–be] Mike [Dukakis] asked me to nominate him."

(It is traditional for presidential candidates' names to be placed in nomination prior to the roll call of the states, even if the candidate has no chance of winning. It is a practice that goes back to a time in America when conventions really did meet to choose nominees, and no one knew who that might be.

(At most conventions since the end of World War II, there has been no suspense about who the presidential nominee would be. Therefore, being chosen to place the presumptive nominee's name in nomination has become quite a feather in the speaker's cap but hardly strategically important to the nomination process.)

Clinton went on to write that Dukakis felt that, although he was leading then–Vice President George H.W. Bush in the polls, it was necessary for Clinton to "introduce him" to the nation "as a leader whose personal qualities, record in office and new ideas made him the right person for the presidency."

A candidate whose name was to be placed in nomination was allotted 25 minutes for the nominating and seconding speeches, which typically were divided between two, three, sometimes four speakers.

"Because I was his colleague, his friend and a Southerner," Clinton wrote, "they wanted me to do it and to take the entire allotted time."

Clinton agreed but (perhaps with the benefit of considerable hindsight) wrote that he was "flattered ... but wary."

"Conventions are loud meet–and–greet affairs where the words coming from the platform are usually just background music," Clinton wrote, "except for the keynote address and the presidential and vice–presidential acceptance speeches."

In his memoirs, Clinton claimed that he explained to the people in Dukakis' campaign that a long speech was not likely to succeed "unless the delegates and the media were prepared for it." He suggested dimming the lights and having the campaign's floor operatives "keep the delegates quiet. Also [the delegates] couldn't clap too much or it would substantially increase the length of the speech."

Twenty–five years ago today, Clinton said he brought a copy of the speech to Dukakis' hotel suite and showed it to the candidate and his advisers. It would take about 22 minutes to deliver, 25 if applause was minimal, and Clinton promised to cut as much as the campaign staff thought was necessary. Clinton was told to "give it all. Mike wanted America to know him as I did."

Considering the results of that year's election, it is tempting to say "mission accomplished." But that isn't the whole story.

It could well have been the mother of all convention fiasco speeches.

Clinton's speech dragged on for more than half an hour with the delegates erupting into wild applause with every mention of Dukakis' name. Otherwise, though, they appeared to pay little attention.

Network observers made jokes at Clinton's expense that were punctuated by a technician making a cutting motion across his throat, apparently in an attempt to encourage Clinton to wrap it up.

"I had some good lines," Clinton recalled, "but, alas, the biggest applause line I got was near the painful end when I said, 'In closing ...' It was 32 minutes of total disaster."

I was packing to move to Texas when the Democrats convened in 1988, but I remember that, when Clinton returned to Arkansas after the convention, the people of Arkansas were quite warm and supportive. Even those who had disagreed with his politics over the years empathized with what he had been through in Atlanta. Some were even indignant about Clinton's treatment (although, privately, they weren't quite that upset).

Clinton, however, still held his White House ambitions, and he needed some way to overcome the image problem created by his nomination speech.

An appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was thought to be the answer.

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Carson had been making jokes about Clinton's speech in his monologues. In his memoir, Clinton wrote that one of Carson's "more memorable lines was 'The speech went over about as well as a Velcro condom.' "

After negotiations between Clinton's staff and Carson's, it was decided that Clinton would be a guest, and he would bring his saxophone. The reasoning was simple: Carson had a policy of not having politicians on the show, and, by agreeing to play the sax, Clinton made it possible for Carson to continue to ban politicians (well, those who couldn't play a musical instrument).

Clinton had been playing the sax for years, but most Arkansans didn't know it. Turned out that he wasn't bad, either.

But first there were all sorts of gags that related to Clinton's speech.

Carson gave Clinton an introduction that seemed like it wouldn't end, then, when Clinton came out, Carson pulled out an hourglass and put it on the desk.

Clinton seemed to be a punching bag that was too big to resist.

Clinton did pretty well for himself, though. He explained to Carson that he wanted to make Dukakis look good, and "I succeeded beyond my wildest imagination!" Clinton also told Carson that Dukakis liked the speech so much he wanted to send Clinton to the Republican convention to nominate Bush.

My favorite line from Clinton, though, was when he told Carson he had blown the nominating speech deliberately.

"I always wanted to be on this show in the worst way," he said, "and now I am."

It was a public relations triumph. Clinton charmed Carson and earned his redemption with the voters. When he sought the presidency four years later, Clinton was seldom asked about his speech in Atlanta.

It was the night of the New Hampshire primary in 1992 when Clinton declared himself the "comeback kid" after finishing second when he had declined precipitously in the polls following Gennifer Flowers' assertions that she had an extramarital affair with Clinton.

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Clinton's resilience was well known in Arkansas. Several years earlier, after he lost a gubernatorial re–election bid, he sought the office again and defeated the man who had beaten him in the previous election. From that day forward in Arkansas, he was the comeback kid.

(Actually, he was called Kid Comeback before he won that political rematch — as you can see in the above cartoon that was drawn by a college classmate of mine.)

But it was in Atlanta — and then Los Angeles — nearly 3½ years before the New Hampshire primary when Clinton first established himself nationally as the comeback kid.