Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway by Dave Barry

Author:Dave Barry [Barry, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-80805-9
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-11-09T05:00:00+00:00

The hot new Democratic name in 1984 was Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, who suddenly, out of nowhere, became hugely popular for no evident reason, like Britney Spears. This is the reality of presidential politics: Somebody gets hot, and it usually has nothing to do with his positions on the issues, assuming he has some. It’s some kind of inexplicable chemical thing between the candidate and the voters, and in 1984 it happened with Hart. Everywhere he went, he drew large, excited, squealing crowds. You’d ask people, “Why do you support Hart?” And they’d say, “I like his ideas!” Then you’d ask, “Which ideas of his do you like?” And they’d say, “You know! His … ideas!”

I was never clear myself on what Hart’s ideas were, although I do remember he talked a lot about plutonium. Basically, I think people liked him because they thought he looked and sounded kind of cool.

I believe that how a candidate looks and sounds is way more important to the voters than his position on anything, which is why the public periodically decides that it likes some politician who totally disagrees with some other politician that the public also likes. The public to this day is crazy mad for John F. Kennedy, not because of his policies—nobody has a clue what his policies were—but because … he had class! He was handsome! His wife was beautiful! He was President Beatle!

The public also liked Ronald Reagan, not because the public was suddenly conservative, but because Reagan looked and sounded like a nice guy—maybe not the sharpest dart in the board, but a regular and decent fellow, who made you feel like your nice old Uncle Bob had somehow wound up running the country. And the public liked Bill Clinton, at least at first, not because the public was suddenly liberal, but because the public found Clinton to be outgoing and friendly, and so the public forgave him for also being a complete horn dog who, given half a chance, would shag the public’s wife.

But getting back to 1984: Hart was clearly the most attractive candidate, the only one with even a remote chance of beating Ronald Reagan, so naturally the Democrats selected: Walter Mondale. When Mondale accepted the nomination, he wooed the voters by informing them—in that intensely nasal, concrete-penetrating voice of his, which seemed to emanate from huge sinus cavities made of stainless steel—that if they elected him as president, his first move would be to jack up their income taxes.

Walter, you sweet-talker!

This was back when the Democrats’ strategy was to pick candidates who were definitely going to lose.2 In 1988, after frontrunner Gary Hart, Man of Ideas, decided that it would be a good presidential idea to have his photograph taken in Bimini with a hot babe in his lap, the Democrats settled on … Michael Dukakis! Mr. Excitement! Dukakis was an intelligent man, but he was also a man who had essentially the same range of facial expressions as an iguana. He did not fire up an audience.

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