Of Potholes and Pollsters
The nineteenth century poet, Sam Walter Foss, called for "Men to match my mountains." That's out now. Voters are looking for a man to fix their potholes.</br></br>Character doesn't count any more. A Washington Post-ABC poll shows that to 77 percent of the electorate, it isn't "the highest personal character" that matters. Mount Rushmore is all very well, but we're talking meat and potatoes here; character is caviar. They are talking about "someone who understands the problems of people like you."</br></br>The Republicans cannot believe that all the virtue has been driven out of the electorate. They are sure that if they touch the right button, Americans will come to their senses and vote for Bob Dole. They believe that Bill Clinton's biography is a gold mine in terms of potential negatives that will kill his candidacy.</br></br>That is surely what the president's 1992 rivals thought. His baggage -- Whitewater, Gennifer Flowers, the draft -- would rob him of nomination and election. But from those first snowy days in New Hampshire, the verdict was as strong as it was surprising. Some said they would have preferred a more upright man and faithful husband, but could not let those considerations be decisive.</br></br>They imposed a kind of "vision test." They were looking for a man who saw what they saw -- foreclosures, bankruptcies, failures, vacant houses, idle factories -- in a word, recession. George Bush, the squire among the peasants, tried to accentuate the positive, get people to be patient with a global economy, marvel in the pleasure of having Arnold Schwarzenegger in their midst. He was grandfatherly, gracious and the lion of the Persian Gulf War. But they were looking for something else, a grasp of reality.