In February 1992, Bush unwittingly validated that cliché during a visit to a grocers’ convention in Orlando. There, the New York Times reported, he paused to inspect an ultramodern cash-register bar-code system. The new technology, he gushed, “amazed” him.100 What had begun as a cheerful photo op turned into a public relations debacle that suggested Bush had no comprehension of Americans’ everyday experiences.
