WASHINGTON — Overlooked in all the wailing, loudest among
conservatives, over the GOP’s Clintonesque stagecraft in Philly is
George W. Bush’s impressive leadership skills.
Show me a strong leader and I’ll show you someone who has the
discipline to stick to a plan, no matter the opposition and bad reviews.
I’ll also show you someone who can motivate people to carry out that
plan.
Bush kept all his people on message for four straight days — and it
paid off. This is no small accomplishment.
Not one Republican left the reservation, not for a moment — not even
John McCain. No one provided the media with a “mean-spirited” or
“extremist” sound bite. No memorable gaffes. No embarrassing slip-ups.
No one even ran over their allotted speaking time.
This doesn’t happen by accident. No sleepy-eyed frat boy could have
pulled off such an uneventful — and successful — event, one that gave
the Bush campaign a 13-point bounce while denying the liberal media
jackals any red meat to chew on going into the final leg of the race.
The convention, drool-dripping dull as it was, proved to me that this
Bush means business. He seems more disciplined than his father — in
both action and rhetoric.
Bush the younger gave a nearly flawless speech, in both content and
delivery. His tongue didn’t get tied in knots like his father’s, which
provided the press with enough malapropisms and non sequiturs — dubbed
“Bushisms” — to fill a book by that name.
He also showed he had the “vision thing” — reforming Social
Security, taxes, education, outdated missile treaties — that his father
lacked. The raw passion was there, too, along with a healthy dose of
Reaganesque humor.
And the prose was slyly designed to paint the opposition in the
negative light it deserves but not so much that it unnecessarily chums
the waters. His references to Clinton-Gore sleaze were so veiled that
the media can’t use them to gin up a controversy. You see, Bush gave
them a lot of innuendo but no radioactive quotes to replay.
Of course, that’s made the media hate-mongers absolutely furious. How
dare Bush not attack Clinton directly so we can call him a
Clinton-hater! He can’t get away with just talking around the character
issue by vowing to restore “honor and dignity” to the White House!
They’re doing their best not to let him get away with it. But it’s
only leaving them more frustrated.
“I think it is a fair question to ask — well, who was he talking
about?” CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer demanded to know of
Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes.
Hughes, calm, cool and still right on message, replied: “He was
talking about himself, Bob. He was talking about a pledge that he is
making to the American people to uphold the honor and the dignity of
that high office.”
But Bush can’t keep the gloves on forever; Gore will draw him into a
bare-knuckled brawl in the debates, right? Maybe not.
Top Bush strategist Karl Rove has come up with the perfect preemptive
strike against the coming ruthless attacks from the Gore camp. It goes
like this: “Gore will say anything and do anything to get elected.”
So when he does launch into an attack, this time the Democrat will
come across to voters as the hateful meanie, not the Republican.
Brilliant.
These Bushies are different. They’re younger, smarter, more
media-savvy and definitely more disciplined.
And unlike their counterparts in the disorganized, self-defeating ’96
Dole and ’92 Bush campaigns, they seem to be playing to win.
Democrats’ monopoly on the black vote is over
Star Parker