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Jewish World Review March 6, 2000 / 29 Adar I, 5760
Chris Matthews
The transfiguration was political, not religious. Reagan
didn't convert to the country's largest Christian
denomination; he repositioned himself for the membership
of a voting group that includes 25 percent of the country's
electorate.
Reagan's gambit began with simple geography. He moved
his campaign headquarters east and named as his new
campaign manager a crusty New Yorker, future CIA
director William Casey.
Reagan executed other cosmetic moves. Raised a
non-ethnic Protestant, he began portraying himself as an
Irish-American son of the great national melting pot. He
had a picture taken of himself enjoying a draft beer at an
Irish pub. He turned himself into the real-life George
Gipp, that charismatic Notre Dame football hero he
played in the movies alongside Pat O'Brien.
On Labor Day, 1980, Reagan completed the transition
from Southern California success story to cultural
Catholic. With the Statue of Liberty at his back, the
Republican nominee donned the mantle of every ethnic
group to make it through Ellis Island.
Jimmy Carter didn't stand a chance with this group, soon to be known as the
"Reagan Democrats." When he competed with the Republican candidate at the
traditional Al Smith Dinner, sponsored by New York's Catholics, he quickly
discovered that Reagan was not just the winner of the white-tie laugh-a-thon
but, worse yet, on the home team.
John McCain is now attempting the same number. Exploiting rival George
Bush's Feb. 2 visit to Bob Jones University, he has painted the Texan as a
pandering ally of anti-Catholic fanatics.
For three weeks Bush made it easy for McCain, refusing to apologize for
starting his South Carolina campaign on a campus where Catholicism is
dismissed as a "cult." He refused to admit that a symbolic visit meant to be a
foothold locally had become a banana peel nationally.
Attempting to quiet things down, Gov. Bush wrote a letter of strong apology
this past weekend to New York's Cardinal John O'Connor. He took the blame
for not "disassociating" himself from the anti-Catholic sentiments of Bob Jones
University.
Spotting weakness, McCain broadened his assault, lashing into Bush not just
for the Bob Jones visit but for getting into political bed with the religious right in
the first place.
"We are the party of Ronald Reagan, not Pat Robertson," he said in Virginia
Beach. "My friends, I am a Reagan Republican who will defeat Al Gore.
Unfortunately, Gov. Bush is a Pat Robertson Republican who will lose to Al
Gore."
"Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of
American politics and the agents of intolerance," McCain said on Monday,
"whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson
and Jerry Falwell on the right."
McCain's speech is a declaration of war. From here to Philadelphia, the
Republican party will be divided between Catholics and the religious right.
Unless a victorious campaign can replace the right with voters from the center,
it's hard to see either candidate leading a winning coalition in
03/01/00: John McCain fits a hero's profile
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