John McCain: George W. Bush, or Bob Dole?
That’s the big question I walked away with last night. The GOP is going to run this race on the old “culture war” items yet again – which has been the only thing that’s really worked since Pat Buchanan gave that 1992 culture war salvo at the GOP convention.
Now, this worked wonders for George W. Bush. By embracing every cultural stereotype he wound his way into office twice. His personal life and resume was, naturally, a complete disaster, but if he could run on the culture issues he became the “regular guy” who lived in a small town and found Jesus.
In 1996, Bob Dole was the prototype of this kind of campaign – instead of being a complete fabrication like GWB, though, Dole had a long career of public service behind him. This made it nearly impossible for Dole to embrace the tag of culture warrior, and most of his campaign events came off looking kind of silly. (Even when – just as McCain did with Palin – he added Jack Kemp to appease the “conservatives”.)
Now comes John McCain. The marker has been set in this convention – once again, the forces of culture are going to assail Washington. Can John McCain be a culture warrior?