Wednesday, May 5, 2010 - I knew this would be the roughest ride for... |
| I knew this would be the roughest ride for mePresident Bush was a tough, proud man who was finally fighting hard to hold on to his jobAnd I was sure that, sooner or later, Perot, too, would turn his fire on me
More than 90 million people watched the last debate on October 19, the largest audience we had drawnWe were questioned half the time by Jim Lehrer, half the time by a panel of journalistsIt was President Bushs best performanceHe accused me of being a tax-and-spend liberal, a Jimmy Carter clone, and a waffler who couldnt make up his mindOn the waffling issue I had a pretty good retort: I cant believe hes accused me of taking two sides of an issueHe said trickle-down economics is voodoo economics and now hes its biggest practitionerWhen he hit the Arkansas economy, I got to reply that Arkansas had always been a poor state, but in the last year we were first in job creation, fourth in the percentage increase in manufacturing jobs, fourth in the percentage increase in personal income, and fourth in the decline in poverty, with the second-lowest state and local tax burden in the country: The difference between Arkansas and the United States is that were going in the right direction and this countrys going in the wrong directionI said that, instead of apologizing for signing the deficit-reduction plan with its gas-tax omega watches increase, the President should have acknowledged that his error was in saying Read my lips in the first placePerot took us both on, saying he had grown up five blocks from Arkansas and my experience as governor of such a small state was irrelevant to presidential decision making, and accusing Bush of telling Saddam Hussein that the United States would not respond if he invaded northern KuwaitWe both whacked him back
The second half of the debate featured questions by the panel of journalistsOn the whole, it was more structured and less feisty, a bit like the first debateHowever, there were some made-for-TV momentsHelen Thomas of United Press International, the senior White House correspondent, asked me: If you had it to do over again, would you put on the nations uniform? I said I might answer the draft questions better, but I still thought Vietnam was a mistakeI then noted that wed had some pretty good non-veteran Presidents, including FDR, Wilson, and Lincoln, who opposed the Mexican WarWhen I said Bush had made news in the first debate by saying he would put James Baker in charge of economic policy, but I would make news by putting myself in charge of economic policy, Bush got off a good line: Thats what worries meThe three of us brought the debates to an end with effective closing statementsI thanked the people for watching and omega constellation watches caring about the country, and said again that I wasnt interested in attacking anyone personallyI complimented Ross Perot on his campaign and raising the profile of the deficitAnd I said of President Bush, I honor his service to our country, I appreciate his efforts, and I wish him wellI just believe its time to changeI know we can do better
Its hard to say who won the third debateI did a good job defending Arkansas and my record, and in discussing the issues, but I may have qualified too many of my answersI had seen enough Presidents who had to change course to want my hands tied later by blanket statements in the debatesWith his back against the wall, President Bush did well on everything except his attack on my record in Arkansas; that would work only in an unanswered paid ad, where the voters couldnt hear the factsHe was better at questioning what kind of President I would be, playing into the perception of Democrats as being weak on foreign policy and tax-happy, and reminding people that the last southern Democratic governor to be elected President presided over a period of high interest rates and inflationPerot was witty and comfortable in his own skin, which I thought would reassure his supporters and perhaps sway some of the undecided votersThree of the post-debate polls showed me winning the debate, but the CNN/USA gucci coin wallet Today poll, the only one to show Perot the victor, said 12 percent had changed their preference after the debate, more than half of them going to Perot
Still, on balance, the debates were good for meMore Americans thought I had the ability to be a good President, and the give-and-take on the issues allowed me a chance to push my positive proposalsI wish we could have done them for two more weeksInstead, we headed for the homestretch, a frenzied rush to as many states as possible, with the airwaves full of negative ads from my opponents, and a shot against Bush from me featuring his most famous statement: Read my lipsFrank Greer and Mandy Grunwald did a good job with our ads, and our rapid-response team answered theirs effectively, but it wasnt the same as having all the candidates in one roomNow they were coming after me, and I had to hang on
On October 21, the campaign got a little comic relief when Burkes Peerage, Englands leading genealogical authority, said that President Bush and I were both descendants of thirteenth-century English royalty and were distant cousins, at least twenty times removedOur common ancestor was King JohnBush was descended through Johns son King Henry III, making him Queen Elizabeths thirteenth cousinAppropriately, my royal connections were both less impressive and offset by equally strong democratic gucci watch uk tiesMy Blythe kinfolk were descendants of both Henry IIIs sister Eleanor and her husband, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who defeated the king in battle and forced him to accept the most representative parliament up to that timeAlas, in 1265 the king broke his oath to honor the Parliament, a breach that led to the battle of Evesham, in which poor Simon was killedThe spokesman for Burkes Peerage said that Simons body was hacked into a multitude of pieces, bits being sent out around the countrya finger, perhaps, to a village, a foot to a townto show what happened to democratsNow that I knew that the roots of my differences with the President went back seven hundred years, I suppose I couldnt blame his campaign for being faithful to the tactics of his ancestorsBurkes Peerage also traced the Blythes back to the village of Gotham, which, according to English legend, was a haunt of madmenI knew I had to be a little crazy to run for President, but I hated to think it was genetic
On October 23, our campaign got another boost from the high-tech sector when the leaders of more than thirty computer-software companies, including Microsoft executive vice president Steve Ballmer, endorsed meA week after the last debate, a CNN/USA Today poll had my lead over President Bush down to seven points, 39 to 32 percent, with Perot at 20 prada evening bags percen |
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