The Nineties: A Book

by Chuck Klosterman

The logic here is weak and arguably nonexistent: Bush had quit drinking in 1986. He’d actually been charged with driving under the influence as a thirty-year-old—he was stopped by police after a hard night of boozing with an Australian tennis pro in a Kennebunkport bar. But that happened in 1976, so the penalty was a paltry $150 fine. The story of his old arrest did not leak until the election was one week away, and some thought the timing of the story might damage his reputation and hurt his chances. It did not.[*] It may, in fact, have validated the assessment that getting drunk with George Bush would be more fun than getting drunk with Al Gore. The beer company Sam Adams even commissioned the Roper Starch research firm to conduct a national poll to see which candidate Americans preferred to drink with. The results were actually closer than the general assumption—Bush won 40 to 37 (with 23 percent undecided[*]). But the raw numbers were not what mattered. What mattered was the validation of the question itself. Why not vote on the basis of low-impact likability? What would be the consequences of accidentally picking the wrong guy? There were problems in America, but they were the regular problems. They were the problems that would always be problems, regardless of who lived in the White House. Some people were unemployed, but overall unemployment was at a thirty-year low. People complained about crime, but violent crime and property crime were down from the year before. ...