“He now leads the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but the only thing he has to offer is fear itself.” George W. Bush, acceptance speech at the GOP convention, August 3, 2000
Who knew that, along with his other attributes, George W. Bush had the gift of prophecy?
It’s an extraordinary spectacle: Al Gore, the incumbent vice president of the United States, at a time of peace and prosperity, closing his presidential campaign with an appeal to pure, unadulterated fear. First, shortly after the third debate, the Gore campaign and the Democratic party went up with television commercials on Social Security, which may have succeeded in scaring some senior citizens (temporarily) away from Bush. If the Bush operatives were caught a bit by surprise, they have only themselves to blame. The Democratic national chairman had warned that, in proposing to reform Social Security, Bush had “grabbed the third rail of American politics” but “didn’t realize that we hadn’t turned on the electricity yet.”
But the real electricity was turned on last week, more quietly, over the telephone. The Gore campaign began phoning households, especially senior citizens, with automated messages designed to scare the recipients away from Bush. First there was the Ed Asner recorded message, falsely and repeatedly claiming that Bush’s Social Security plan would cut benefits for current beneficiaries; then there was the taped message from a Texas woman, holding Bush more or less responsible for her husband’s death in a nursing home four years ago; then there was the message from a Houston mother, complaining that her kids can’t go outside because of air pollution supposedly caused by Bush. Phone calls like these offer a campaign the advantage of flying under the radar, hardly visible to the media, and with deniability as to their origin (there is no disclosure of who is paying for such calls, while disclosure is required of TV and radio commercials).
Fear is a powerful emotion, and such appeals to fear sometimes work. A similar (and equally dishonest) stealth Social Security fear campaign over the phones in the last days of the 1994 Florida gubernatorial election probably cost Jeb Bush a victory over Lawton Chiles.
But Gore’s campaign probably made a mistake. They began the calls two weeks before the election, allowing the Bush campaign ample time to respond. Surely the right response is to turn the phone calls back on Gore as a prime example of his willingness to say and do anything to win. In fact, Bush could make Gore’s stealth attack a dominant issue in the campaign’s final days. The reason is simple: The flaws of Gore’s campaign reflect the flaws of the candidate himself. And these flaws are in turn a reminder of the unwholesome nature of the Clinton-Gore administration.
Clinton’s emergence onto the campaign trail this week is a further gift to the Bush campaign. If Bush has already succeeded in making an issue out of the character of his opponent’s campaign, then this latest development allows him to relink Gore and Clinton and to return, explicitly and implicitly, to his theme of “no third term.” Then, over the last weekend, Bush can sound a positive note, explaining that America needs a change in the White House, and emphasizing a message of bipartisanship, trust in the people, and hope.
Gore is now desperately avoiding appearances with Clinton, but a focus on Gore’s unethical campaign tactics over the next few days can help ensure that Dick Cheney’s prophecy will come true: “Somehow we will never see one without thinking of the other.” If voters see Gore in the context of his fear-mongering campaign, and are at the same time reminded of his association with Bill Clinton, George W. Bush will be our next president.
William Kristol
