Word: reaganism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Bush does intend to use that playbook -- but in his own good time. He likens his current predicament to the situation four years ago, when his advisers urged him to break with Ronald Reagan on such issues as the environment, education and child care, in order to court independent voters. Bush waited until the G.O.P. convention in August 1988 to cut the Reagan link. Within weeks, he had the race sewn up. Bush is gambling that voters will wait until the fall to make up their mind, so why show Americans his best pitch until then...
...Teeter, the 1992 campaign is shaping up like a recurring nightmare. It was 16 years ago that Teeter, serving as Gerald Ford's campaign pollster, watched while the incumbent Republican President came under relentless attack from a more conservative Ronald Reagan. Although Ford eventually won the nomination, he was badly damaged by the intramural fight and went on to lose a close general election to Jimmy Carter...
Ford was later criticized for two miscalculations that may help explain why Bush has been madly maneuvering in recent weeks. First, critics said Ford was slow to take the Reagan challenge seriously, in part because the former actor did not win a primary until the North Carolina contest in late March 1976. Apart from banning the word detente at the White House, Ford refused to pander to the party's right wing. Instead he crisscrossed the country to meet Reagan head on, in a series of trips that made him look desperate and distinctly nonpresidential...
...races remain markedly dissimilar. Whereas Ford became President after Richard Nixon resigned, Bush was elected in his own right. Unlike Buchanan, Reagan was a proven vote getter, who had twice been elected Governor of one of the nation's biggest states, and went on to win 10 primaries. Nonetheless, the spirit of 1976 may already be working for the Democrats. As a senior Bush campaign adviser said last week, "Everybody knows that the way to defeat an incumbent President is with a challenge from the ideological wing of the party...
Buchanan knows that while Reagan lost the '76 nomination, his gutsy challenge to Ford strengthened his position in the crowded 1980 Republican primary race. Buchanan has already gained a spot near Dan Quayle in the 1996 starting gate. "Reagan dusted Ford up, but it didn't prevent him from winning it the next time," an Administration official says. "Pat is rolling the dice and figures he could become the heir apparent to the conservative wing...