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Jewish World Review May 9, 2000 / 4 Iyar, 5760
Chris Matthews
Kennedy, who followed his father and older brother to
Harvard, delivered that jest upon receiving an honorary
Ph.D. from that other Ivy League institution in New
Haven the day of his historic June 1963 address on
economic policy.
To paraphrase JFK, George W. Bush of Texas has a
Yale degree and a Bob Jones education.
He owes the first to a combination of adequate
academics and potent parenthood. Put simply, the Bushes
go to Yale.
George W.'s education at Bob Jones University is a
legacy of another sort. After giving his much-maligned
speech at that South Carolina academy, he proved once
again that a person only truly believes what he discovers
himself.
Bush discovered that a presidential candidate may have
to do some nasty things, but he better not come across as
a nasty guy. It's one thing to carpet-bomb South Carolina
to win a primary, he now knows. It's another to make
permanent friends with the folks defining the targets.
Since February, the Texas governor has moved inexorably to the kinder,
gentler politics that his father once so famously promised. He has zigzagged
across the heartland with a message of peace and mutual respect, scoring both
parties for what he called "a cycle of bitterness, an arms race of anger."
And it appears to be working: This week's Gallup Poll has Bush ahead of Gore
by five points, a lead that may tell more about what the voters want than whom
they want.
What they may want is a presidential season far apart from the pride and
prejudice they have known for the past eight years: the endless Clinton
excesses bound in uncivil union to the heartless assaults of his enemies.
If so, the Bush comeback of the past several months offers a powerful prelude
to the autumn electoral season: Bush has learned that voters like him when he is
not blasting away at his rival.
Gore has learned the opposite — that he slips in the polls the second he drops
his dukes. To win, he must keep up the attack on his rival. He must do to Bush
what he did to Bill Bradley: Open up a cut and punch it till his opponent's
trainers can't stop the bleeding. Find something wrong with the Texas
governor's program, and bring him down with it.
Gore beat Bradley by calling him dangerous on Medicare. He previewed a
similar assault on Bush's foreign policy and Social Security positions. He said
both are dangerous.
If Bush has discovered he looks better when the dust settles, Gore has learned
that he
05/03/00: Show of force!
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