How Bush can pull it out, win the nomination, and get elected President.

Le Roi Est Mort

By Bryan Zepp Jamieson

2/24/00

Over the past three weeks, going back to New Hampshire, we've been treated to the show of overwhelming front-runner George W. Bush campaigning in much the same style that a cork going over Niagara Falls "campaigns". He's been holding his nose above water, albeit barely, and that's about the best you can say for his stirring display of leadership.

Things look bad for the Republicans, no two ways about it. People were getting tired of the sanctimony and hypocrisy of the Christian right, and figuring out that maybe supporting guys like Forbes and Bush (Motto: "Feed the rich") weren't really in their best interests. They lost face on the impeachment fiasco, the nuclear test-ban treaty vote, the Newt disintegration, and hundreds of other little faux pas.

Bush and McCain have been in a protracted pissing contest, variously accusing each other of dirty tricks and negative campaigning, of being secret liberal democrats, of being unfaithful to their party, and, sin of all sins, of not Being Ronald Reagan.

Not Being Ronald Reagan is the worst thing you can say to a Republican candidate. Any rational person knows that Not Being Ronald Reagan isn't necessarily a bad thing. On the best day he ever had, the man had a room-temperature IQ, the spine of a banana, and the morals of a sewer rat. He was an inept governor who grew up to be an inept President, and outside of the Disneyland of the Republican spin machine, he would have been quickly forgotten as one of the most mediocre Presidents this side of Buchanan.

But Republicans who are in the business of sanctifying all things Republican have made Reagan into a demi-god, a smiling, benevolent father figure perfidiously assailed by treasonous Congressi and who managed, despite that, to defeat communism with one brain tied behind his back.

Not Being Ronald Reagan means the candidate is not wise, not benevolent, not enfolding, not visionary, not noble. Never mind that Reagan was none of these things, either; Being Ronald Reagan is necessary if a Republican wants his party's support.

So here's Bush. He's not exactly on the ropes as far as the nomination goes. He can lose most of the primaries and still walk away with the nomination, because he's got commits from most of the superdelegates out there. But as far as the general election goes, he's got to come out of the primaries not looking like he just took a few rides through a branch shredder en route to beating back the McCain insurgency. He's got to look brave, calm, noble, fearless, strong, resolute, and purposeful. He has to Be Ronald Reagan.

There is a way he can do this, and it's one that is Oedipaedean and Shakespearean in its directness and drama.

He must arrange to have Ronald Reagan killed.

Three days before the convention would be just about ideal.

What he does is have someone visit Reagan and slip a little cyanide in the old boy's Alpo. Guys in Reagan's condition and at his age suddenly kick off for no reason at any time, and given the generally miserable conditions of his present situation, nobody is likely to question a sudden death on his part very closely, Nancy least of all. She has to be one very tired lady by now.

So: someone goes in and poisons Reagan. He gulps, his eyes go wide, he tells a quick anecdote about his days as a fighter pilot over Germany in WWII, offers his poisoner a jelly bean, and expires.

Across the land, Republicans are devastated. They are on their knees, rending their garments and beseeching their gods for mercy. They've lost their leader, their father. Life is suddenly empty, and full of dark, formless fears. The future is bleak.

As the shocking reality of Reagan's death sinks in, there comes, Biblically enough, a voice of resurrection on the third day. From the Republican National Convention comes a voice, calm, unafraid, reassuring. "Republicans, be not afraid. For your father, Ronald Reagan, shall be with you always in me. Come to me, my children, and fear not the barbarians. For in death Reagan is greater than any of they in life, and I shall use his beneficence and grandeur to lead us forth to the promised land".

Trembling, damp-eyed, Republicans will look up to see George W. Bush, radiant and serene in white silk robes, with glowing white light artfully playing behind him, a new leader for the Conservative movement.

They will be inspired, and will vote en masse, and Bush will rise to become the new Reagan for the Age.

I figure he'll make it nearly to the mid-term election before a couple of his secret service come to him to report that they've seen Ronald Reagan wandering around the Rose Garden late at night...