A month from now, few will remember that George Bush and his handlers allowed their nominating convention to be turned over to the moon-bayers and the Bible Belters and the cultural warriors.
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The race against Democrat Bill Clinton will be as close as any in recent memory, and the talk will be of jobs and judgment and trust. That`s as it should be.
The barbarians-at-the-gate shriek of the Republican platform will be long forgotten, as will the divisive, sulfurous rhetoric of Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, William Bennett and the rest of the right-wing cultural priesthood.
Still, four nights in the Astrodome provided a road map through the
”cultural divide” that many in the GOP believe is swallowing up our country.
Throughout the week, Bush`s political minions were keeping their distance from much of the rhetoric, talking about their candidate`s economic message while the roster of speakers at the convention droned on about alternative lifestyles and deviant behavior.
At the Democratic convention last month, Clinton and his allies offered a relentless drumbeat of criticism aimed at George Bush, the president. It was predictable, partisan stuff, and it might have been excessive, but it was politics.
The atmosphere inside the Astrodome was different. Much of the criticism of Bill Clinton, and of his wife, Hillary, seemed to go to their worth as human beings.
The target, night after night, was Bill Clinton, the Great Satan. The governor of Arkansas was sketched as the patron of perverts, the defiler of family values, the champion of radical feminists, the killer of unborn babies. ”When Bill Clinton talks about family values, he is not talking about either families or values,” said TV evangelist Pat Robertson, whose Christian fundamentalist brigade crowded the platform committee. ”He is talking about a radical plan to destroy the traditional family and transfer its functions to the federal government.”
Whatever that means, it was typical of the convention`s tone. The talk was of those who did not measure up, who would not get in line, who had departed from the Republican hymn book on family values.
Passing in review, Republicans claimed the spiritual and patriotic verities, and they often left it to the audience to draw the obvious conclusion.
Given her moment in prime time, Marilyn Quayle unburdened herself of a little history, and a little social criticism.
”Not everyone joined the counterculture,” said the vice president`s wife, a born-again Baby Boomer at this affair. ”Not everyone demonstrated, dropped out, took drugs, joined the sexual revolution or dodged the draft.” You don`t need a weatherman to know which direction that message was blowing.
Grace notes were at a premium at this graceless affair. Barbara Bush offered one, after two nights of divisive, mean-spirited oratory spewed forth by video preachers and TV personalities-turned-politicos.
It was left to the president`s wife to reach out to single parents and working mothers, to some of those who do not live on the self-satisfied cultural redoubt occupied by Buchanan, Jerry Falwell and right-wing radio smartypants Rush Limbaugh, the semiofficial convention mascot.
Barbara Bush had her own view of family values, although it was not the view articulated by the fearful agents who took her husband`s convention away from him.
”However you define family,” the first lady said, ”that`s what we mean by family values.”
Later, she offered an olive branch to those who couldn`t get a mention inside the domed secular cathedral: ”You may be exhausted from a working a job, or two jobs and taking care of your children, or you may have put your career on hold. Either way, you may wonder, as I did every now and then, am I really doing the right thing?
”Yes, you are,” said Barbara Bush.
The same night, Bush`s young grandson, George P. Bush, offered a heartfelt plea to a national TV audience, asking them to take a second look at his beleaguered and beloved grandfather.
”I just wish people who see George Bush on TV or read about him in the newspapers could know him as I do,” the 14-year-old said.
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It was a gentle, honest moment, and it would not have been appropriate to tell this earnest young man that his Gampy might not be in this fix if he had not peddled his political capital and his message and his last convention to the haters inside his own party.