A new electoral day

Our prince of panic in the post-

debate commentary in the Presid-

ential campaign, Andrew Sullivan

of the Oxford Union and The Daily

Beast, has declared not merely

the incumbent's betrayal of his

noble cause, but the death of it

because of his unique position.

Andrew has always needed to be

the firstest with the mostest, 

and this has sometimes been sal-

utary, as in his demand for mar-

ital equality, and silly, as in 

his announcement of the end of

AIDS. We shall have to take un-

der history's advisement, what

combination of uses his present

panic might serve; but it seems

fair to look elsewhere, for vic-

tory. 

Plainly, we are in the midst of

a new battlefield, calling - it

seems, to any rational observer -

for a new battle plan. The chal-

lenger is no longer occupying the

ground of the callow liar, the 

lecher of mammon, and the shrill

shill of the sanctimonious Right.

Very well. Is there time to defeat

him as the simple assurance that

he is, of greater and greater ex-

tremes of middle-class impoverish-

ment and the betrayal of civil 

liberties?

It was intellectually arrogant

to mock the new darling of the

soccer moms, for harrowing Big

Bird; and intellectual arrogance

is the infamous residual resort of

the President's Party since (bless

his heart) Adlai Stevenson limned

modesty in lust, against a smiling

warlord of Main Street. The Presi-

dent, should he care to rejoin the

battle, needs to accept it in its

new terms. Simply put, his is the

securest path to brighter financial

prospects for the ninety-nine per

cent: the path of John F. Kennedy,

of a little inflation for a lot of

stimulation. To a culture where
nothing but slights are remembered,
this can sound positively thrilling.
But it takes the blind faith of Rand-
ian oppression and stands it on its
head: if it is true that an imbalance
in revenue can cure the deficit by
expanding the economy, let's go for
it, by the path we know will work.

We'll always have Dukakis. Why not
a happy warrior, for fairness' sake?