Project President

by Ben Shapiro

  The nomination speech is replete with redundant synonyms and ostentatious rhetorical flourishes: “the hard, the implacable,” “their comradeship and their fealty,” “argued and disagreed,” “disagreed and argued,” “neither equivocates, contradicts, nor evades,” “our party’s record, its principles, and its purposes,” “partisan denunciation, with epithets and abuse,” and so on.67 Stevenson may have been running for president, but he sounded as though he were running for thesaurus.

  Stevenson’s speaking difficulties were nothing compared to his trouble with that infernal television machine. In 1959, when Stevenson was again questing for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mary McGrory wrote:

  In campaigns Stevenson broods endlessly over substance but remains indifferent to form. He scorns to learn the simple lessons of effective television delivery . . . Stevenson would never so much as go to a television studio for a voice test. Nor can he ever be persuaded to take a nap or a walk during the hour before going on the air . . . The opening rally of the 1956 campaign in Harrisburg brought a traumatic experience with the teleprompter, a device that President Eisenhower used with the greatest ease. Stevenson, however, fell among technicians who put fierce lights between him and the prompting boards, with the result that he looked from one to another like a frantic spectator at a tennis match.68

  In his television commercials, Stevenson is clearly ill at ease. One of his commercials from 1956 featured Stevenson talking about peace with a young senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy. The two sit side-by-side in the commercial. But while Kennedy sits comfortably and explains the Democratic position, Stevenson shifts in his seat, gets up, walks around, then sits down again. Stevenson goes on and on like a runaway jukebox, interspersing his mind-numbing litany with a veritable panoply of “uh.” An uninformed viewer could easily conclude that it was Kennedy running for president and Stevenson interviewing him.69

  If only the Democrats had been that lucky.

  THE 1980 ELECTION PITTED a former boots candidate, incumbent president Jimmy Carter, against the president who revitalized boots once and for all: Ronald Reagan. Carter was no suit. As the former governor of Alabama and a peanut farmer, Carter had all of his boots credentials in order. When he ran against incumbent president Gerald Ford in 1976, Carter ran strictly on a boots platform. Campaign commercials touted Carter’s family history and rural roots. His biography ad bragged that his “folks have been farmers in Georgia for more than 200 years” and showed him standing in a peanut field wearing a plaid shirt and jeans; other shots depicted him in a jean shirt leaning against the proverbial log cabin.70 His commercials look like clips from The Waltons.

  During his presidency, Carter attempted to bring a down-home style to the White House. In an early presidential broadcast, he appeared in a cardigan sweater and said, “I’ve spent a lot of time deciding how I can be a good president.”71 Unfortunately for Carter, he lost his boots somewhere in Washington, D.C. He likely lost them when the country began thinking of him as incompetent and weak. Being a boots candidate has drawbacks for governance: the image of the tough guy in spurs and a ten-gallon hat vanishes if the cowboy ends up acting more like Grace Kelly than Gary Cooper in High Noon.

  Carter had hardly been tough with regard to either domestic or foreign policy. His own 1980 campaign advisors saw that he had squandered the public trust. Carter media advisor Gerald Raf-shoon wrote a campaign memo bluntly asserting, “The public is now convinced that Jimmy Carter is an inept man. He has tried hard but he has failed. He is weak and indecisive—in over his head. We have to change peoples’ minds.”72 And Washington Post columnist Richard Harwood wrote, “After only two years in the White House, Carter’s competence had become something of an international joke.”73

  With Carter’s boots credentials up for debate, the door was open for Ronald Reagan—a throwback cowboy. Reagan grew up in Illinois, attended Eureka College in his home state, and then moved to Hollywood to pursue his movie career. Eventually Reagan became governor of California. But throughout his life people thought of him as a spokesman for a simpler time, a more rugged and honest time.Nicknamed “Gipper,” “Dutch,” and “the cowboy,”74 Reagan entered politics with his boots image in tow.

  Reagan bolstered that image in 1974 when he bought the Rancho del Cielo—the “Ranch in the Sky”—that he renovated and tended himself.75 In his autobiography, Reagan spoke fondly of Rancho del Cielo, which came to be known to the media as the White House West: “Over the next eight years, the ranch was a sanctuary for us like no other . . . at Rancho del Cielo, Nancy and I could put on our boots and old clothes, recharge our batteries, and be reminded of where we had come from.”76 Countless photo ops revolve around Reagan chopping wood, mending fences, and riding horses at Rancho del Cielo. The relatively modest ranch largely came to signify Reagan. And Reagan didn’t object to that.

  “This,” Reagan said, “is who I really am.”77

  Reagan exploited his hardscrabble roots throughout the 1980 campaign. His 1980 commercials are masterpieces of personality politics. A late campaign commercial, “This Is a Man,” describes Reagan’s childhood “in America’s heartland, small town Illinois.

  From a close-knit family a sense for the values of family, even though luxuries were few and hard to come by.” The ad states that as an actor his “appeal came from his roots, his character . . . he appealed to audiences because he was so clearly one of them.”78

  Reporter Lou Cannon echoed this glowing characterization:

  His values were shaped in a day when most Americans lived not in the great, cluttered urban landscapes of our time but in towns and small cities surrounding a more pastoral land.When he was trying out self-characterizations early in the 1980 campaign, Reagan briefly referred to himself as a “Main Street Republican,” a phrase intended to show that he was not a boardroom candidate like John Connally or an Ivy Leaguer like George Bush. The phrase, quietly discarded after the primaries because Reagan’s advisers thought it made the candidate seem partisan and out of date, was an appropriate description of Reagan. Like all persons, he is a product of his time and region, his experience and his culture.79

  Reagan was often photographed at his ranch in California. One of his favorite jokes sprang from his horse-riding photo ops. Jimmy Carter, Reagan stated, had contacted him one day to ask him a question.

  “Ronneh,” asked Carter, “how can yew look younger every day when I see a new picture of yew ridin’ horseback?”

  “Jimmeh,” Reagan replied, “I jes’ keep ridin’ older horses.”80

  As Reagan shored up his boots image, Carter continued to undermine his own. During the presidential debate with Reagan, Carter strangely invoked the authority of his twelve-year-old daughter, Amy, while discussing nuclear disarmament. “I think, to close out this discussion, it would be better to put into perspective what we’re talking about,” Carter said. “I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day, before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry—and the control of nuclear arms.”81 Nothing like relying on the advice of a twelve-year-old girl to boost that image of presidential competence and strength.

  When the election came around, voters gave Carter the boot. Reagan moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—Rancho del Cielo East.

  NO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN HISTORY has had his luck shift as quickly or as precipitously as George H.W. Bush. In 1988, he received a terrific White House–warming gift from the Democratic Party in the form of Michael Dukakis. Then, in 1992, he had his boots license revoked by a hick from Arkansas named Bill Clinton and a big-eared hick from Texas named Ross Perot.

  Bush was lucky in 1988. He was no boots candidate—his Ivy League credentials and Connecticut heritage precluded that. By his own admission, he was a “boring kind of guy.”82 And he didn’t seem particularly tough to the general public. When he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, Lou Cannon and William Peterson sen
sed “a lingering hard-to-define uneasiness about the man, a sense that he lacked toughness and grit. It led his opponents and the press to dismiss him as a fragile, rich Ivy Leaguer, a Texan who didn’t own a single cow . . . A Carter campaign aide captured the feeling with a tongue-in-cheek slogan for a Carter-Bush campaign: ‘Why change wimps in the middle of the stream?’ His quip captured the problems that would plague the Bush campaign.”83 Bush maintained his image as a “wimp” throughout the Reagan years. In the fall of 1987, Newsweek came out with a cover story featuring Bush. The title: “The Wimp Factor.”84

  Fortunately for Bush, his opponent in the 1988 election was Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, a suit of suits. Though Dukakis’s campaign tried to play up Bush’s suit-ness—former Texas governor Ann Richards told the 1988 Democratic National Convention that Bush had been “born with a silver foot in his mouth”—the campaign couldn’t overcome their own suity candidate. Next to Dukakis, Bush looked like John Wayne. Dukakis was generally perceived as soft on defense, soft on crime, and socially liberal—a Massachusetts liberal. The Republicans could have run a small bunny rabbit against Dukakis and looked tough.

  Bush was in the fortunate position of having been Reagan’s vice president, which alleviated the suit problem. He was from Texas, even if only nominally. He was a generally genial fellow, in contrast to the cold Dukakis. And in going after Dukakis in a series of hard-hitting attack ads, Bush only strengthened his image. He looked tough, not mean, especially when he juxtaposed his attack ads with ads glorifying the Pledge of Allegiance and the American flag.85

  Bush also benefited from the media attacks. As his campaign manager, Roger Ailes, stated, “I think George was dramatically undersold. By the time he got to the convention, he had been described as a wimp, a man who couldn’t make a speech, and a man who would cave under pressure of the campaign. I think the public saw him at the convention do a good job and give a good speech. And they said once again the media have hoodwinked us; this guy is not as bad as everybody keeps telling us he is.”86

  By 1992, Bush’s boots persona had been badly damaged. He had not gone all the way in Iraq. He had backed down on his pledge not to raise taxes. He was no rancher or cowboy.

  Unfortunately for Bush, he was faced with two boots candidates in 1992: Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. Clinton was homey in the Jimmy Carter mode—except Clinton was more personable, warmer, and more likable. Clinton’s campaign commercials featured him as the kid from Hope, growing up poor and living the American dream. In his nomination acceptance speech, Clinton rhetorically asked why the American people should trust him. His answer:

  I never met my father. He was killed in a car wreck on a rainy road three months before I was born, driving from Chicago to Arkansas to see my mother. After that, my mother had to support us, so we lived with my grandparents while she went back to Louisiana to study nursing. I can still see her clearly tonight through the eyes of a three-year-old, kneeling at the railroad station and weeping as she put me back on the train to Arkansas with my grandmother. She endured that pain because she knew her sacrifice was the only way she could support me and give me a better life. My mother taught me. She taught me about family and hard work and sacrifice. She held steady through tragedy after tragedy, and she held our family—my brother and I [sic]—together through tough times. As a child, I watched her go off to work each day at a time when it wasn’t always easy to be a working mother. As an adult, I watched her fight off breast cancer, and again she has taught me a lesson in courage. And always, always, always she taught me to fight.87

  What this had to do with trust was never answered; what it had to do with hardscrabble roots was clear.

  Meanwhile, Ross Perot campaigned on sheer Texan gall. He sounded like Jed Clampett and acted like a high school principal. His populist rhetoric caught on. During his debate with Clinton and Bush on October 19, 1992, he dismissed both candidates with his straight-talking style. He called Clinton’s record in Arkansas “irrelevant,” since Arkansas “has a population less than Chicago or Los Angeles, about the size of Dallas and Forth Worth combined . . . I could say, you know, that I ran a small grocery store on the corner, therefore I extrapolate that into the fact that I can run Wal-Mart. That’s not true.” And Bush was given no quarter; Perot grilled him about his handling of the Gulf War. Perot summed up his own appeal aptly: “Now, look, I’m just kind of a, you know, cur dog here; I was put on the ballot by the people, not special interests. So I have to stand up for myself.”88

  Bush could not emerge victorious against the combined boots of Perot and Clinton. Clinton—the man who essentially campaigned as a hick, Jimmy Carter 1976–style—became president.

  GEORGE W. BUSH LEARNED from his father’s mistakes. Bush was far more of a Texan than his father; though he was born in Connecticut, he was raised in Texas, becoming first a part-owner of the Texas Rangers and then a two-term governor of the state. He looked comfortable in a cowboy hat and boots, announcing his candidacy wearing both89 and routinely campaigning in the outfit. Even his political enemies recognized his boots authenticity. Molly Ivins said of him, “W does not have his daddy’s goofy, upper-middle class,WASPy streak . . . Culturally,W is more of a Texan than his daddy was.”90

  Like Reagan, Bush bought a ranch, this one in Crawford,Texas, where many of his photo ops originated. While George H. W. Bush used a Houston hotel as his campaign headquarters, W used the ranch. During a media tour, Bush called the ranch his “little slice of heaven.”91 Most prominently, Bush used the ranch as a backdrop while choosing his running mate.92

  Bush’s 2000 opponent, Vice President Al Gore, also attempted to wear boots. Though Gore was from Tennessee, he was well-known as a calculator and manipulator—not genuine enough to capture America’s heart and about as exciting as a block of wood. Throughout the campaign, Gore tried to change his image, adopting more cowboy-oriented attire. A story from USA Today on May 17, 1999, highlighted Gore’s new strategy:

  Vice President Gore unveiled a two-part strategy Sunday to regain his political footing for next year’s presidential race: an education policy blueprint and black cowboy boots . . . And in a bid to shed his image as a stiff campaigner more comfortable in Harvard salons than Hawkeye living rooms, he donned a short-sleeve, blue knit shirt and cowboy boots as he hopscotched by bus across southeastern Iowa, stopping in small towns from Lamoni to Fort Madison.

  In recent days, the article reported, Gore had also “lost the suit and tie to demonstrate that he can connect with voters.”93 The New York Times similarly reported on Gore’s “unbuttoning,” explaining that “he has shed his blue suit (as per President Clinton’s instructions) for a green polo shirt, khakis, and cowboy boots.”94

  Unfortunately for Gore, his transformation from buttoned-up suit to buttoned-down boots candidate seemed manipulated. Out-cowboying Bush would be a difficult task to begin with; for the stoic Gore, it was impossible. The media reported daily on Gore’s image manipulation. Most famously, the media reported that Gore had paid controversial and kooky feminist author Naomi Wolf $15,000 per month to advise him on transforming from a “beta male” to an “alpha male” and wearing “earth tones.”

  The Republican National Committee quickly issued a press release entitled “Al Gore and the Big Bad Wolf.” The press release included a list: “10 signs of alpha male.” One of the signs: “Real alpha males don’t get rolled to the tune of $15,000 a month to learn how to be alpha males.”95 Bush, too, leapt on the story, joking at a white-tie dinner that he had met a woman exiting the elevator at the Waldorf. The woman—“I think her name is Naomi or something like that”—had told him he ought to wear more earth tones, Bush said. “Can you imagine a grown man, paying $15,000 for somebody to tell you what to wear?” he asked.96

  Gore blew it in 2000—he should have won, and won big. Though Bush lost the popular vote, he won the presidency by the skin of his teeth. Real boots candidates do not need personal makeovers. Hiring the cast from Queer Eye for the S
traight Guy to choose your wardrobe automatically makes you a suit in the eyes of most Americans—as Al Gore learned, to his everlasting shame.

  IF BUSH’S BOOTS WON HIM THE 2000 ELECTION, they certainly reassured his reelection in 2004. Over the course of his first term, Bush strengthened his cowboy image; even his enemies labeled him a cowboy. But running against John Kerry, a notorious suit, Bush didn’t even have to buy a new Stetson. He could wait for Kerry to implode all by himself.

  And implode Kerry did. The Kerry campaign was full of gaffes. Kerry decided to look masculine by talking about hunting in Wisconsin. When asked what type of hunting he preferred, Kerry stated, “I’d have to say deer. I go out with my trusty 12-gauge double- barrel, crawl around on my stomach . . . That’s hunting.” There was only one problem: that’s not hunting. No one hunts deer while crawling around on the ground. Columnist Mark Steyn wryly noted:

  This caused huge hilarity among my New Hampshire neighbors. None of us has ever heard of anybody deer hunting by crawling around on his stomach, even in Massachusetts. The trick is to blend in with the woods and, given that John Kerry already looks like a forlorn tree in late fall, it’s hard to see why he’d give up his natural advantage in order to hunt horizontally . . . if you’re a 14-point buck and get shot in the toe this autumn, you’ll know who to sue.97

  Kerry supplemented this fiasco by going goose hunting in Ohio later in the campaign, in full camouflage. The media was barred from the actual hunt, though they were allowed to photograph Kerry and his buddies returning from it.While Kerry claimed that everyone in his group got a bird, he showed up without one.When asked where his bird was, Kerry stated, “I’m too lazy . . . I’m still giddy over the Red Sox. It was hard to focus.”98 It also turned out that Kerry had borrowed the camouflage and the gun for the photo op.99