Volume 35, Number 20 · December 22, 1988
The Election and the Future: A Symposium
By Benjamin M. Friedman, C. Vann Woodward, Christopher Jencks, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Garry Wills, Joan Didion et al.
It was President Reagan himself who suggested that the recent presidential election might be regarded as a referendum on his own presidency. There is much to support his view. 'I feel a little like I'm on the ballot myself,' he said, and he campaigned that way. The Vice-President, as nominal head of the ticket, deferred to him with the same dog-like loyalty he had habitually shown. Reagan's support was clearly George Bush's most precious asset, and his only hint of a program for the new administration was a virtual continuation of Reagan's policies. Michael Dukakis tacitly acknowledged the threat of the referendum concept and the President's popularity by the cautious way he criticized Reagan.
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