Word: wofford
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Bush's expedient conversion to domestic priorities did not prevent voters in Pennsylvania's Senate race from sending him a chilling message. They demolished former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, a Bush surrogate for whom the President campaigned actively, 55% to 45%, and elected liberal Democrat Harris Wofford, a campaign neophyte who had hammered away at the Administration's poor economic performance. The voters, Wofford declared, "are fed up and want action to get our economy off dead center and get us moving out of this recession. It's time to take care...
Last week's city elections may not have been as exciting as a Harris Wofford upset or as emotional as a Ray Flynn landslide, but they had a character that was distinctly Cambridge...
Those actions won Wofford editorial praise, but he still trailed Thornburgh by 44 points when the campaign began in September. His anti-Establishment pledge to "shake Washington up from top to bottom" contrasted with Thornburgh's defense of the status quo, and marginally improved his standing. His call for the Democratic Party to end its preoccupation with programs targeted to the poor in favor of a renewed emphasis on middle-class relief moved the needle a bit more, but Wofford was still considered a certain loser...
What finally made the race competitive was Wofford's constant carping about America's sorry health-care system. "The Constitution says that if you are charged with a crime, you have a right to a lawyer," Wofford intoned endlessly. "But it's even more fundamental that if you're sick, you should have the right to a doctor." Thornburgh claimed that national health insurance is too expensive, and rightly blasted Wofford for a lack of specifics. But the G.O.P. counterattack failed to resonate, and even Thornburgh was forced to admire Wofford's latest stunt, a bill the Senator introduced three...
While many political analysts have focused on Louisiana (where David Duke, the racist former Klansman, is locked in a tight race for Governor), the White House has been worrying about Pennsylvania. "Win or lose, there are 1 1/2 crucial things to learn from Wofford," says a senior Bush adviser. "The half is about how a sagging economy can be played to advantage by Democrats and about how easily a candidate perceived as an outsider can play the desire-for- change theme against an insider. The more important signal involves the sudden saliency of the health-care issue...