Word: nixonization
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...ability to associate oneself with patriotic symbols has often been the difference between Democrats who win and Democrats who lose. Why couldn't George McGovern buy a white working-class vote in 1972? Partly, as the great campaign chronicler Theodore White noted, because virtually every member of Richard Nixon's Cabinet wore a flag lapel button, and no one in McGovern's entourage did. Michael Dukakis lost in 1988 because as governor of Massachusetts, he vetoed a bill requiring teachers to lead students in the Pledge of Allegiance, a veto the Republicans never let him forget...
...kind of seasonal shifting of messages isn't new for a presidential campaign, in which candidates typically move to the fringes to appeal to their party's all-important base in primaries and the center to appeal to crucial moderate and independent swing voters in the general election. Richard Nixon practically perfected the transformation in 1968, initially building his "silent majority" of conservatives freaked out by hippie war protesters and inner-city riots before selling his "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War in the fall. But having spent the last 16 months pledging to be "the change...
...McCain wants to encourage that interpretation, he might enlist his wife to help. From Pat Nixon, who declared "I believe abortion is a personal choice," to Betty Ford, who praised the Supreme Court's judgment in Roe as "a great, great decision" to Laura Bush, who on the eve of her husband's inauguration said she did not think he would appoint justices who would overturn Roe, pro-choice wives have long tried to signal to voters that this particular Republican President would not focus on abortion...
...prayers. And so we treat their pastors as partisan players, their churches as focus groups. How is that likely to affect the choices candidates make, the churches they join, the counsel they seek? Will they have to vet their congregations the way they do their Cabinets? Or follow Richard Nixon's example and move services into the White House, where he found them to be the ideal opportunity to reward friends and woo donors and twist arms, all the while singing, "He will hold me fast/ For my Saviour loves...
...More narrowly, the map can help a nominee make a play for a state that is crucial in November, though that is never a sure bet. Kennedy, with Johnson as his running mate, squeezed by Nixon to win Texas with a margin of merely 46,000 votes, in what turned out to be one of the closest elections in American history. But Dukakis got swamped in the Lone Star State, where Bentsen's considerable popularity was no match for the thrill of having another Texan, George H.W. Bush, in the Oval Office...