Much ado about
very little was made over the “rock star” status of former President Bill
Clinton. First, there was his unreadable 957-page memoir, which raised
narcissism to an art form and wherein he demonstrated that the phrase “I
can’t recall” never should have been accepted from a man capable of writing
page after page of details about his senior prom.
Then there was his smooth-as-silk appearance at the Democrats’ big confab in
Boston, where he gave the party faithful what they had been yearning for ever
since he left office: style over substance, with a bit of the old humor that has
always caused him to tower over the stiff, wooden delivery of Al Gore and John
Kerry. (Remember them?) By any measure (other than comparing what he said to the
facts), it was a great speech and therefore vintage Clinton.
Let’s face it; for reasons those of us who value the rule of law and respect
for the presidency will never understand, Bill Clinton is a god in among
Democrats, who remember the 1990s as fondly as we conservatives do the
Gipper’s tax-cutting, anti-Communist glory days in the 1980s. (One really has
to pity a political party that clings that tenaciously to the memory of the
Clinton years.)
Unlikely as it might seem, Republicans have their own rock star this year, in
the form of George W. Bush. I realized this as I stood among 11,000 GOP faithful
who had come to see their president at the Tyson Center in downtown Sioux City,
Iowa. The president was making his umpteenth appearance in the Hawkeye State to
try to lock down the seven electoral votes that just barely eluded him in 2000,
when he lost the state to Gore by a little more than 4,000 votes.
They started lining up by mid-morning for the scheduled 1:00 p.m. speech. The
line, not unlike that of a sold-out concert, stretched for blocks. A line of
metal detectors that have become commonplace in modern times sat in front of the
facility's main entrance. The transition from pedestrian to spectator was a
smooth one, as middle-aged couples, the elderly and young families patiently
waited in line for their chance to see a sitting president in person.
The anticipation was palpable in that auditorium when, after a two-hour wait and
a number of preliminary speeches, the image the president's motorcade pulling
into the parking garage flashed on a large overhead screen and the crowd burst
into cheers and applause. This is what well-run campaigns are all about.
Now, I have been around politics at all levels long enough to understand the
emotion that filled that auditorium. The presidential campaign's advance men and
women had done their jobs well. As he entered the hall and worked his way
through the crowd, reaching out and shaking hands as he went, it was obvious
that he felt a genuine affection for those he touched, and they for him. Fathers
lifted their children onto their shoulders to catch a glimpse of their
president. And when he took the stage, sleeves rolled up, with wife Laura at his
side, he seemed at ease,
a man assured of his place in history.
It was at that moment that I understood why George W. Bush will win re-election
this year. The polls show the race as a statistical dead heat, yet the Democrat
half is lukewarm toward their candidate. To them, John Kerry's main attribute is
that he is not George W. Bush. Conversely, after a year and a half of partisan
pounding, after millions spent by the likes of George Soros, after Michael
Moore's slanderous movie, the half of the electorate that supports the president
has remained committed through it all.
Okay, so he may not be a rock star, but you would never know it from that crowd
in Sioux City.
Doug
Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a speechwriter and policy
advisor for candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations at the federal,
state and local levels. He is a senior writer for GOPUSA, and his weekly
columns are published in newspapers across the country. He also writes for
Talon News Service. Readers can e-mail him at [email protected].
