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The American Election: Another Reagan Triumph

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.
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Extract

THE ELECTION OF GEORGE BUSH TO THE PRESIDENCY IN 1988 was a triumph for Ronald Reagan. The margin of victory was substantial (54 per cent to Bush over 46 per cent to Michael Dukakis in the popular vote) — though not of Reaganesque proportions. But then the master might not wish his apprentice to do as well as himself. Reagan has not only brought peace and prosperity in his own terms while in office, but also has succeeded in leaving a legacy. And the legacy is not only in the political changes he instituted but partly in the person of his immediate successor, the first vicepresident to succeed as president by election since Martin Van Buren in 1837.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1989 , pp. 28 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1989

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References

1 Mansfield, Harvey C Jr, ‘The American Election: Entitlements versus Opportunity’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 20, no. 1, 1985, pp. 3—17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 This current Americanism identifies, with mock superstition, a word that is needed but is bad luck (or obscene) to pronounce.

3 Federalist, 72.

4 Tulis, Jeffrey, The Rhetorical Presidency, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1987 Google Scholar.

5 See Blitz, Mark, ‘The Character of Executive and Legislative Action in a Country Based on Natural Rights’, in Muller, James W. (ed.), The Revival of Constitutionalism, Lincoln, Neb., University of Nebraska Press, 1988, p. 209 Google Scholar.