A Prediction
Recall Paul Wellstone’s funeral, to which all prominent Republicans were disinvited, and which soon devolved into a pep rally. I predict that Reagan’s funeral and the associated events will be nothing like that. However, the probability is infinitely close to 1 that at some point between today and November 2, someone associated with the Bush re-election campaign will make an oblique reference to Reagan’s legacy, call on the party faithful to “win one for the Gipper,” or some such. Maybe it will make a reference to his death, or maybe it will be indistinguishable from the Reagan references we heard in the 1988, 1990, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002 campaigns. That detail doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that if when this happens, watch for a hue and cry among Dems arguing along the lines of “see, you guys criticized us for politicizing Wellstone’s death, but you guys did the same thing over Reagan’s, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.”
I could be wrong about this, but I’m not.
June 7th, 2004 at 7:52 am
I said as much in the comments to Andrew’s post “Reagan and Wellstone”. I see that there’s a NYT report today that Reagan’s death may not help Bush. They keep politicizing it.
June 7th, 2004 at 11:31 am
I’ll be looking for the turnout numbers in Washington and back here in CA, the numbers for the people who come out to show their respect.
June 8th, 2004 at 10:23 am
Eulogizing Reagan
It happened sooner than expected, but Democrats are trying to “Wellstone” the funeral of President Reagan, if Matt Drudge is to be believed: “President Clinton really held out all hope the funeral would be a nonpartisan event, like Nixon’s was,”…