It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Twenty-Three

"The 1992 Campaign and Election" Part One

The 1992 nominating process brought hard line conservative Pat Buchanan into the Republican primaries against President George Bush. He challenged Bush about breaking his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge and about the President making deals with Democrats, with Buchanan "essentially saying" the country didn't need two liberal parties, thus moving elements of the Republican coalition to advocate standing firm in beliefs, and making compromise seem like weakness. Buchanan made a strong showing in New Hampshire, but Bush won and he continued on to a relatively easy renomination, but the attacks from Buchanan took a toll, as a part of the conservative base of the Republican Party remained unenthusiastic about George Bush. Buchanan's challenge and his standing with many conservatives led Bush to give Buchanan the keynote address spot at the Republican Convention. Buchanan's address was a full throttle assault on the Democratic candidate Bill Clinton, his wife Hillary, and Democrats in general, who, he said, were in a fight to take over the soul of the country by advocating abortion, gay rights, and a diverse society. The speech energized conservatives to some degree, but the venom dripping words undoubtedly shocked many truly independent voters.

Meanwhile, Texas businessman Ross Perot had entered the national spotlight by focusing on the federal budget deficit, an issue on the minds of many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, although especially so for fiscal conservatives. Like Buchanan, he indicated that the existing politicians were not truly responsive to the public. Unlike Buchanan, Perot was not wedded to many of the socially conservative ideas laid out by Buchanan and some elements of the Religious Right, and he was more libertarian on many issues. A large number of Americans flocked to Perot, who seemed to fill a niche at that time, and he said he would run for president, "if" enough people showed interest in his candidacy by getting his name placed on the ballots in all fifty states, a condition which was fulfilled. A billionaire, Perot didn't have to rely on donations from special interest groups, with such money raising being another growing concern among Americans. In the spring of 1992 Perot led in many national polls, which only increased his appeal to Americans tired of party politics. For George Bush, Perot's candidacy was a plague, as the President had tackled the deficit issue, even breaking his no tax pledge to do so, and by working across party lines, now only to have Perot say not enough had been done to deal with the national debt and that deals between members of the two parties were sort of tainted. So Bush had hard line conservatives furious with him for tax increases to reduce the deficit AND Perot angry with him for not having done enough to deal with the debt. No good deed goes unpunished and Bush's accomplishment ended up being largely negated. Again, many of the people who claimed to be so concerned about the deficit and tax increases under George Bush never held Ronald Reagan to the same standard, although deficits under Reagan were horrible and Reagan increased taxes in several ways, but Bush was not a showman or a "great communicator," and he suffered accordingly. The '92 election also showed how many Americans disregarded facts in favor of showmanship. Hey, we're the country of Hollywood and slick ads telling us why dish detergent "A" is better than dish detergents "B" and "C," even though they're all essentially the same thing.

Next, in "The 1992 Campaign and Election, Part Two," Perot implodes, Clinton surges, and the Republican coalition melts down.

WORD HISTORY:
Cloth-Like its close relatives "clot," "clod" and "clout," this word goes back to Indo European "gleuh," which had the notion of "stick together, adhere." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "klaut," with the same general meanings.This then produced Old Germanic "klutaz," which had the notion of  "piece of material," and also, "material used to cover something." This then gave Old Germanic the variant "klaithan," with the "material used to cover something," meaning; thus "cloth," and by extension "garment," which then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "clath," likely with a long "a" sound, and this later became "cloth." Old English "clath" also had the additional meaning "sail," obviously from the notion of the material used for such, but it was not the primary word for "sail," which indeed was the ancestor of the modern word "sail" (I'll cover 'sail' soon). The original Old English plural form was "clathas," which became "clothes," "wearing apparel, clothing." The other Germanic languages have forms all having meanings to do with "clothes" or "cloth": standard German "Kleid" (garment, dress), Low German Saxon "kleed" (clothing, garment), West Frisian "kleed" (piece of clothing, garment), Dutch "kleed" (garment, carpet), Danish has "klaede" (cloth) and "klaeder" (clothes), Icelandic has "klaethi" (clothes), Norwegian has "klut(en)" (cloth), and Swedish has "kläder" (clothes) and "kläde" (cloth).