Bush Heads Down the Low Road

George Bush went before the most negative convention in recent history and threw more dirt on the pile. In accepting his party’s nomination, he got himself back into the race for President. However, his speech won’t be remembered for its transparent new “read my lips” tax pledge, or for the nostalgic tour through the Iron Curtain, but for the unrelentingly vicious attacks on Bill Clinton. The President topped off the show called Houston the way others began it--mean-spirited, graceless and ugly.

The only way Bush can get reelected is to make Clinton unelectable. To do that will require a negative campaign far more intense than Willie Horton campaign of 1988. But the ferocity and intensity of this strategy has surprised even the most cynical among us.

Some sights and sounds from this mud-slinging convention:

Right-to-Lifers: Walking among the evangelical right-to-lifers at the “God and Country Rally” Monday was more frightening than staring into the eyes of five muggers in a dark alley. Their doctrinaire, self-righteous attacks on Clinton and anyone else who threatened to support abortion rights makes you wonder how they can call themselves God-fearing. Indeed, they call themselves God’s messengers. What they are is narrow-minded, mostly men who had a frightening amount of control over this convention. The God I know is far too benevolent for this crowd.

Patrick J. Buchanan: This angry man unleashed the most reactionary televised convention speech ever, including Barry M. Goldwater’s in 1964. His call to arms for a cultural cleansing was beyond the pale. I have known Buchanan for several years. This is not the man I thought I knew. It may well be true that politics bring out the worst in many people. It certainly has in this Christian defender of “pure” America.

Muckrakers: The clumsy efforts by Bush handlers to raise the adultery charge against Clinton and to pillory Hillary Clinton were GOP dirty tricks at their worst. They took hypocrisy to a new level by letting U.S. Treasurer Catalina Vasquez Villalpando describe Bill Clinton as a “skirt chaser,” letting the campaign chairman call the issue fair game and letting one operative after another make coy references from the podium; then, on Thursday, having senior Bush adviser Charles R. Black Jr. say Hillary and adultery should not be part of the campaign. Add to this the President’s continuing pious disavowal of dirty campaigning and you’ve got a four-day scam worthy of dirty trickster Donald F. Segretti and the rest of the Watergate crowd.

Draft Dodger: Buchanan on Monday and hatchet-woman Marilyn Quayle on Wednesday attacked Bill Clinton for avoiding the draft. After hearing both speeches and their delivery, you would think these two were collaborators. But Buchanan never spent a day in the armed services and Danny Boy joined the National Guard to duck Vietnam.

The Fear Factor: Bush operatives were in a foul, frightened and dangerous mood, which allowed all this to happen. It’s clear now they are taking the President literally and will “do anything to win.”

On Being Scared: A personal note. Covering the ’88 Republican Convention in New Orleans was a delight. People were kind to me, some wonderfully so. Not in Houston. Verbal abuse, dirty stares, a cry Thursday night of “Commie traitor.” I left the place shaken by the ends some of these folks will go to keep the White House. I thought I had seen it all after 20 years in politics. I hadn’t.

And so Bush has his predicted convention bounce. It is a negative bounce but a bounce nonetheless.

But ganging up on Clinton will not be enough. George Bush must make a case for himself. He hasn’t yet. He left Houston on a roll, but still on the defensive. Can he win? Yes. But at a cost frightening to comprehend. He can get there by stepping on civility and demeaning the concept of public service. It can be done. The question is, Mr. President, is it worth it?