Dole was born to be a minority leader. He was the last one to put one over on the solidly left wing media. When Clinton came to power in 1993 with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the media acted as though we now had a Marxian emperor, who would quickly lead us to the Utopia of the workers paradise promised by Lennin so many decades before. The first person to slam the breaks on the new administration was actually Bob Rubin. While no conservative by any stretch, he simply pointed out, consistently, that the Carville, Hillary, et. al, road to socialism would kill the bond market and probably Clinton's re-election chances.
So a watered-down package of cheap political payoffs and tax increases was sent up to Congress, and the media figured it would be rubber-stamped. Bob Dole stopped most of it, and made the tax increase a pyrric victory for Clinton. Thus was laid the foundation for the nationalization of the 1994 elections under the "Contract with America" theme. The success of that electoral strategy-even though it was not his creation, and he, ironically, really didn't understand it-was what got Dole rewarded with the 1996 nomination. Political service awards are the bain of both parties... |
