ON THE EVE of the 1996 election, I had a long conversation with a friend on the Dole campaign who was traveling with the candidate as he made his last-minute hopscotch across the country. I had just offered him condolences on the race when he corrected me. Speaking from an airport pay phone in the wee hours of the morning, he explained that Bob Dole didn’t just have a chance to win, but was assured of it. His exact words were: “We have this election in the bag.” He then proceeded to give me a state-by-state breakdown, explaining how liberal-bias polls were distorting the numbers in California, the union turnout was going to be lower than expected in Ohio and Missouri, and that in-house polls showed a breaking “surge” across all fronts. “This thing is,” he said excitedly, “In. The. Bag.”