by Ben Shapiro
The Bush-Dukakis height differential loomed especially large on television—a situation with which Dukakis was not particularly comfortable. “[Height and other image perceptions] do matter to some extent,” Dukakis admitted to commentator David Frost. “I think I’d be a lot more comfortable if they didn’t matter quite so much, but the American people get a great deal of their information and a good deal of their sense of who one is from television.”100
There was good reason for Dukakis’s discomfort. Johnny Carson routinely made note of Dukakis’s diminutive stature. “Dukakis . . . is pretty confident now,” Carson cracked. “I understand he’s already bought Phone Book 1 to sit on in the Oval Office.” “Dukakis . . . took a break campaigning today,” went another Carson jab. “He was in a seafood restaurant in Boston and he asked the waiter, ‘Do you serve shrimps here?’ And the waiter said, ‘Sit down, we serve anybody.’ ”101 “He may be the first president in history,” Carson joked, “who will have to be lifted up to see his own inaugural parade.”102
Before the debates, William Safire offered advice to Dukakis regarding his height:
Don’t let them stand you on a box. Every photographer in the world wants the picture of you trying to close the six-inch stature gap; they’ll be crawling behind the stage to shoot any hidden podium or elevated heels. Cross ’em up by lowering your lectern. Quote James Madison, who was not too short to father the Constitution; confess to having exaggerated your height (I suspect that your claim of 5 feet 8 on your driver’s license is a barefoot lie) and keep evoking David and Goliath with “slingshot parties” to watch TV.103
Dukakis ignored most of Safire’s advice. The Dukakis campaign spent political capital debating with the Bush campaign about permissible methods of hiding Dukakis’s height, leading Carson to suggest that the Dukakis campaign wanted the candidates to debate from crouches.104 In the end, Dukakis stood on an “artfully constructed mound hidden underneath the red carpet”; the mound boosted Dukakis three inches. There was only one problem: when the debate ended, Dukakis would have to step off of the mound. When he did, reported Maureen Dowd, “the six-inch difference in height between the men looked suddenly dramatic.”105
Bush’s height also scuttled a rumored Dukakis debate tactic. If the debate was going poorly for Dukakis, rumor had it that Dukakis would challenge Bush to ignore the panel and debate him man-to-man. If Dukakis had done that, reported Time magazine, “Bush stood ready to exploit his most natural advantage: the 6-in. height gap separating him and the Democratic nominee. Bush would demand that Dukakis come out from behind his height-adjusted podium as a condition for attempting any reprise of Lincoln-Douglas pyrotechnics.”106
The Bush campaign didn’t shy from poking fun at Dukakis’s height. “If you want to know who’s on the side of the little guy,” joked Ronald Reagan at a college rally the week before the election, “well, I’ll tell you—it’s the big guy, the big guy from Texas.”107 Reagan was referring to Dukakis’s running mate, Lloyd Bentsen (six-feet-two-inches).108 At the Republican National Convention, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) used Dukakis’s height to blast his defense policies: “Michael Dukakis seems to believe that the Trident is a chewing gum, that the B-1 is a vitamin pill and that the Midgetman is anyone shorter than he is.”109
Asked early in the campaign whether he could beat Dukakis, Bush remarked, “I’ve got the height advantage.”110 Bush also told reporters at a press session during the RNC that Dukakis was “short on defense—short, get it?”111 One Republican bumper sticker proclaimed, “Our Wimp Can Beat Your Shrimp.” “Is short stature so great a weakness that it is to be equated with weakness of personality?” asked Marilyn Goldstein of New York Newsday. “I guess it is.”112
Bush capitalized on the height differential for two reasons. First, Bush needed to counter charges that he was a wimp. “The Wimp Factor,” as the cover of Newsweek bluntly put it,113 dogged Bush throughout the campaign. Bush admitted that the perception of his wimpiness made people believe—wrongly—that he was “a little short guy.”114 If the Bush campaign could play up the height issue, they could counter perceptions of Bush as wimp.
Second, Bush could capitalize on Dukakis’s height because the imagery fit. Shortness creates a presumption of weakness; that presumption fit Dukakis, who was weak on defense, weak on crime, and easily buttonholed on red meat issues like the Pledge of Allegiance. Ulysses S. Grant was five-feet-eight-inches, but he never had to battle his height—even in the age of television, his height would likely have been a relative nonfactor. But Dukakis was no Grant.
On Election Day 1988, George H. W. Bush demolished Dukakis. In the aftermath of the election, Bush team members stationed an adjustable height platform in their press office. The platform carried a label: “The Mike Dukakis Memorial Platform.” “We like to keep it high,” quipped a Bush aide.115 So did the American people.
GEORGE W. BUSH, standing five-feet-eleven-inches, didn’t inherit his father’s height. He is, however, the most successful “shorter” presidential candidate since William McKinley (1896–1901). In 2000, he defeated slightly taller Vice President Al Gore; in 2004, he defeated a veritable giant in John Kerry. Bush has single-handedly proven that the presumption in favor of height is just that—a presumption only.
The slight height disparity made little difference in 2000. Gore was taller, but he was also more boring—a thickly built totem pole. Bush was shorter but had bigger personality. No one thought of Bush as substantially shorter than Gore. Part of that had to do with Gore’s primary battle with Bill Bradley (six-feet-five-inches). During the primaries, Gore (six-feet-one-inch) dubbed himself “the candidate of the middle-height voter.” “I promise to represent the interests of the vast majority of the American people—the reasonably statured,” he joked.116 Gore and Bush were “reasonably statured”—no more, no less.
Height became an issue again during the 2004 campaign. Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry stood a whopping six-feet-four-inches, five inches taller than President Bush. Kerry attempted to capitalize on his height. On one occasion, Kerry told the media that Americans shouldn’t be afraid to switch horses in the middle of the stream. “When your horse is drowning, it’s a good time to change horses in midstream,” Kerry gibed. “May I also suggest that we need a taller horse? We could get through deeper waters that way.”117
Kerry’s height advantage, however, never translated into political advantage. Kerry learned the hard way that there is a difference between being tall and standing tall. Throughout the campaign he was labeled a flip-flopper, indecisive and weak on defense. Bush, by contrast, stood by his positions; his opponents attacked him for his Texas “swagger.”
Counterintuitively, Kerry’s height made him the butt of jokes. Kerry’s long face, stiffness, deep voice, slow speech patterns, and hunched-over bearing gave his political enemies ample ammunition. Rush Limbaugh tagged Kerry with the nickname “Lurch,” after the character from the Addams Family. Saturday Night Live noted his resemblance to the Scream mask from the eponymous movies. He was compared to Frankenstein’s monster.118
And Kerry, like Frankenstein’s monster, was exiled to the political Arctic.
How did Kerry’s height become a detriment rather than a benefit? The answer is simple. Height isn’t everything. First impressions can be overcome. Kerry had a decades-long reputation for waffling. He couldn’t credibly pose as an advocate of strong defense, particularly after his statement that America’s decisions about war should be subject to a “global test” for legitimacy. Kerry discarded his natural advantage by demonstrating that his height did not connote decisiveness or strength.
IN THE BIBLE, the children of Israel sought to establish a monarchy after their ascent to the land of Israel. Samuel, the prophet, saw that the king would be Saul, son of Kish, “an excellent young man; no one among the Israelites was handsomer than he; he was a head taller than any of the people.”119
Samuel decided to announce Saul’s anointing.When the people
gathered to hear Samuel’s announcement, however, Saul hid. The people “ran over and brought him . . . and when he took his place among the people, he stood a head taller than all the people.” Samuel said, “Do you see the one whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.” And the Bible says, “All the people acclaimed him, shouting, ‘Long live the king!’ ”120
The political draw of height has a long and esteemed pedigree.
Saul turned out to be an excellent general and a decent king. Height was an indicator of his toughness and his strength.
But height is not a universal indicator. It only establishes a presumption. Short candidates can be tough; tall candidates can be weak. Candidates, after all, are only people, and people are individuals. Winston Churchill clocked in at just under five-feet-seven-inches;121 President James Buchanan, whose disastrously indecisive presidency hastened the outbreak of the Civil War, stood six feet. A tall wimp should not expect the public to overlook his wimpiness; a shorter powerhouse is often able to overcome his physical stature.
Nonetheless, taller candidates have that instant advantage. They don’t have to overcome a presumption of weakness; they can build from a presumption of strength. They have an immediate aura of authority. Shorter candidates must build from the ground up; taller candidates build their images from the top down.
Our ideal presidents are still men like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and Ronald Reagan. None of them were members of the Lollipop Guild.
3
Taking Bullets for Ballots
GEORGE WASHINGTON LOOKED SPIFFY. It was June 1775, and the Second Continental Congress was meeting to discuss who would lead the Continental Army against the British. Washington, a delegate from Virginia, did not speak much during the proceedings.
He didn’t have to.
His uniform spoke for him.
George Washington was the only member of the Second Continental Congress dressed in full military regalia.1 Marvin Kitman wrote:
He was wearing his old French and Indian War (1756–1763) uniform, which he had hung up in mothballs sixteen years previously—the blue coat with red facing of the first Virginia Regiment, which he led into battle . . . here was an ambitious young politician wearing his old army uniform to Congress among all those civilians. It was a most unusual occurrence, all political analysts would agree.2
Kitman also pointed out that Washington made sure to take his uniform out of storage for his first portrait in 1772—a portrait that included a conspicuously placed military rifle in the background.3
Washington stood out from the rest of the crowd, and not simply because of his enormous height. He was already a national figure, having fought valiantly, though somewhat unsuccessfully, in the French and Indian War. His early war experiences had demonstrated a certain incompetence. In one of his first military actions, Washington, then twenty-two, erected Fort Necessity. Unfortunately, Fort Necessity was about as successful as the Maginot Line. It stood at the bottom of a valley, open to enemy fire from surrounding heights on all sides. It became a muddy pond whenever it rained. All in all, it was a mess.4
But if Washington bungled at Fort Necessity, he excelled at public relations. After his first engagement with the French, he wrote to his half-brother, “I fortunately escaped without any wound, for the right wing, where I stood, was exposed to and received all the enemy’s fire . . . I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” It was a felicitous turn of phrase—a turn of phrase that somehow made it into both colonial and British newspapers. Upon hearing the letter, King George III wryly remarked, “He would not say so, if he had been used to hear many.”5
But Washington’s PR wasn’t all empty rhetoric—the man had personal courage. A year later, Washington, sick with dysentery, joined General Edward Braddock in a campaign to take Fort Duquesne.The British forces were outflanked and massacred; Washington had two horses shot out from under him. His coat carried the evidence of several bullet holes. Sent forty miles to British lines for reinforcements, Washington rode, walked, and crawled his way back. His exploits reinforced widespread perceptions of his military heroism.6
So Washington’s reputation stood on his military background— a background he trumpeted each time he insisted on being addressed as “Colonel Washington.”7 It was no wonder, then, that the Congress chose Washington to chair four military readiness committees. During the First Continental Congress, by contrast, Washington chaired zero committees.8
Washington’s election as the general of the Continental Army was a foregone conclusion. He instantly became a colonial sensation. Dr. Solomon Drowne composed the following stanza after watching Washington ride by:
With manly gait
His faithful steed suspended by his side,
Pass’d W—shi—gt-on along, Virginia’s hero.9
With the victory over Great Britain, of course, Washington’s star continued to rise. By the time he was forty-three years old, in 1776, his birthday was celebrated as a quasi-national holiday.10 Washington had become a national institution.
Whom else would the country turn to as president? Washington’s military service made him the obvious choice; he unified the country in war, and he would unify the country in peace.Washington’s support for the Constitutional Convention had allowed the Convention to scrap the Articles of Confederation in favor of the new Constitution. His leadership would be necessary to legitimatize the system of government in its totality. “What will tend, perhaps, more than anything to the adoption of the new system will be an universal opinion of your being elected President of the United States and an expectation that you will accept it for a while,” wrote Washington’s friend, David Humphreys, in a letter to the general. Others were already busy labeling Washington “a second Cincinnatus,” “the Saviour of America,” and “Great Washington.”11
Washington, needless to say, deserved all of his praise. He was not merely a general; he was a political giant. What he created in war he could have undone in peace; instead, he built a foundation upon which America has stood for more than two centuries. Upon his death, Henry Lee delivered the line most descriptive of Washington: “A citizen, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”12 Washington was first in war. But it was all that followed that made him truly great.
A STERLING MILITARY RECORD has never hurt a presidential candidate. Military men have proven their mettle on the battlefield; they have undergone severe hardship in defense of liberty. As president, men face similar, though more amorphous challenges. Americans have historically believed that he who stands up and leads under real fire can stand up and lead under political fire. The military image—the man scanning the horizon, on the lookout for potential enemies, prepared for action if action must be taken—shares a good deal with our image of the presidency.
The validity of military service has always been a sticking point in presidential elections. Every candidate who runs on his military record confronts political opponents willing to impugn that record. Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison had their detractors, just as John Kerry and George W. Bush do. Not everyone who serves is respected equally: Lincoln mocked his own service in the Black Hawk War, and Franklin Pierce’s battlefield activity was viewed alternatively as cowardice or bravery.
With all of the hubbub about military service, however, one fact is certain: the so-called “chickenhawk” argument has never been politically successful. A chickenhawk, as defined by radical leftist Michael Moore, is “a person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; particularly when that enthusiasm is undimmed by personal experience with war; most emphatically when that lack of experience came in spite of ample opportunity in that person’s youth.”13 Lack of military service, the argument goes, should disqualify any candidate for office who is not a complete pacifist.
Using Moore’s definition, Americans have routinely elected chickenhawks. Think Lincoln, Wilson, and FD
R—and that’s just for starters. The simple truth is that military service is seen as a positive for candidates—but not an absolute positive. His past military service will not aid an antimilitary candidate; a lack of military service rarely hampers a pro-military candidate. There are times when Americans prefer a military leader in power; there are times when Americans do not. But no military candidate has ever won office by assaulting a political opponent’s civilianship. Americans respect military service—but taking enemy fire alone doesn’t qualify you for the presidency. Benedict Arnold would not have been a candidate for president if he had returned to the United States after the Revolutionary War. He would have been hanged.
So military service counts. Nonetheless, during the last century, the luster of the military image has faded in political life. During the nineteenth century, Americans elected eight generals to the presidency. During the twentieth century, Americans elected only one. The twentieth century has seen only four genuine war heroes elected president: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and George H. W. Bush. Meanwhile, seven presidents without any military service have been elected.
This transition makes perfect sense. During countries’ founding eras, they very often rely on famous generals to ensure national unity, guarantee the allegiance of the armed forces, and demonstrate the willpower to crush insurrection. Predictably, the most prolific period for U.S. president-generals came in the aftermath of the Civil War, when the country had to be reunified. After Lincoln’s assassination, the next three elected presidents were Union generals; a fourth, Benjamin Harrison, took office between Grover Cleveland’s two terms. Twentieth-century America was nowhere near as tenuous as nineteenth-century America; it did not need strongmen. Only Eisenhower, a politically adept national hero, was elected based on his military service—and even Eisenhower never experienced combat firsthand. And military leaders have been surprisingly unsuccessful in their most recent presidential bids; General Wesley Clark serves as a perfect example.
