Deep within the confines of a secret underground lair, Gov. George W. Bush and Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist, are hard at work.
"Dubya, give me the magic wand."
"Aw, Karl, can't I cast the spell this time?"
"No, you may not. Last time you bungled it; you used 'hokey-pokey' instead of 'hocus-pocus', and Gore picked Joe Lieberman."
With that, W. hands Rove the wand. Rove says the incantation:
"Arms of Nixon and gut of Newt, lips of George and stumbles of Ford, bring us the strategist none can afford! Hocus-pocus!"
And with a flash of light, out of a puff of smoke appears the dirtiest campaign strategist of them all, the ghost of Lee Atwater-the man who made Willie Horton the Democratic candidate in 1988. This was the man who could pull out all the negative stops, from photographs of Boston Harbor to chastising former Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis for his nerdy intellect.
"Who summons me?" bellows Atwater. "Oh, it's you Dubya. Hello Karl."
"Sorry to disturb you from your rest, but we have a great big problem. Al Gore somehow shook off the media-created image that he was wooden and did not care about people and gave an exceptionally effective speech at the Democratic convention. He is tied with us in the polls, and since undecided voters tend to vote with their wallets, our plan to resurrect the last Bush administration might be all for naught!"
"Karl, calm yourself. What do you have to say Dubya?"
"Huh? I'm sorry Lee, I wasn't paying attention, I became disillusioned by this children's book."
Atwater gives a puzzled look.
"Distracted, Lee, he means distracted," says Karl.
"Oh," says Lee. "I see we still have that problem."
"What should we do?"
"Karl, have you tried the pundits? What is Pat Buchanan doing, can he help?"
"Lee, Pat left the party to join the Reform Party because he did not like the fact that the GOP no longer subscribed to his plan to build a Great Wall around the United States."
"You mean ascribe," says W. "The word is ascribe."
"No, Dubya, it is subscribe," responds Karl.
"No, Karl, it is ascribe, I got this one wrong once."
"George, this time 'subscribe' is right, you'd be surprised, words can be tricky like that."
"Well as we say in Texas, 'whatever'!"
"Karl," Lee chimes in, "What about Bob Novak? What about George Will? What about Alan Keyes?"
"Novak is too busy inflating his ego. Will still refers to Dubya as 'President Fratboy.' And, Keyes ran for president against us!"
"That George Will is a minor league a------."
"Dubya, you really must stop referring to the media like that!"
"Forget what he said yesterday... Keyes ran for President?" interrupts Lee.
"Yes, he did. Twice." says Karl.
"Twice? Well, There is one thing left to do. We need to go negative-very negative."
"That's a problem, Gore currently has the momentum, and worse yet, his momentum is based on an issues oriented campaign."
"Drat! Issues! We are doomed!" shouts Atwater. "What about some push-polling?"
"You told us that last time we conjured you!"
"Well, it worked on McCain."
"It will not work on Gore. Gore seems to have insulated..."
"Inundated."
"Thanks Dubya, inundated... wait I do mean insulated-now you have me doing it!"
"Uggggghhhh."
"Something wrong, Lee?"
"Yes! You seem to be right where Al Gore wants you. You tried running a glossy, razzle-dazzle campaign based on the empty catch phrase of 'compassionate conservatism,' but when the going got tough and Gore got going, you drifted from the empty message and tried to defend your stance on policies."
"What about the Polish?"
"And now you are running a campaign based on the very issues Al Gore wants to discuss, like prescription drug benefits and federal funding for education. He set you up like a straw man in an Oklahoma twister."
"What do we do?" W. and Karl ask.
"You go negative, real negative. Lasso him to Monica Lewinsky and campaign finance reform. Go negative and get back to empty catch phrases. If there is one thing Republicans cannot win on, it is the issues." And with that Atwater disappears in a puff of smoke.
"You heard him Dubya," said Karl.
"Yes, I did. But what is compassionate conservatism anyway?"
"Uggggghhhh."
Martin Barna is the editorial page editor of The Chronicle and a Trinity junior.
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