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发表于 2004-5-29 08:05
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这是今天的关于小布什父亲竞选的历史。比较适合托福阅读。生词不是很多。大家课余时间不如看看。::D
刚才的帖子有些地方拼写有错误，下面是从新校正之后的文章：The Election of 1988
In the absence of the issues of recent decades--the soviet threat, the energy crisis, stagflation--the presidential election of 1988 might have easily been dominated by a compelling personality. But the candidates were anything but compelling. The selection of George Bush, Reagan's vice president, for the Republican nomination was a foregone conclusion. Bush, the son of a Connecticut senator, had attended an elite private school and Yale. He served as a pilot during World War ii and then settled in Texas, Where he worked in the family's oil business. As republican presidential hopeful, he trumpeted his experience as vice president ;but when the Reagan administration was tarnished by the Iran-Contra, Bush claimed that he had been "out of the loop" and thus free of the scandal. When testimony proved otherwise, he dithered. In a cover story, Newsweek called him a "wimp."
After winning the nomination, Bush was not helped by his selection of Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana as his running mate. Although Quayle was an ardent supporter of military preparedness, he had avoided the Vietnam draft by enrolling in the Indiana National Guard, and the charge that he had used the influence of his wealthy family to get in the Guard was hard to refute. More seriously , he proved slow-witted in political debate. Gary Trudeau, creator of the political cartoon, "Doonesbury", depicted him as a talking feather.
The Democratic race was far more complicated but scarcely more inspiring. So many lackluster candidates entered the field that wits began to call them "the seven dwarfs". The one candidate who appeared to stand out, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, wished he hadn't. After newspapers reported allegations of his womanizing, Hart issued a challenge to reporters: "If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'd be very bored. "Several did, and were not bored. They found that Hart, who was married, had sailed on a yacht to the Bahamas with an "actress-model". The name of the boat--"Monkey Business"--irreparably suggested what transpired at sea. Hart withdrew from the race.
Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, stressing his record as an efficient manager, accumulated delegates steadily. During one debate, however, another Democratic hopeful, Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, accused Dukakis of handing out "weekend passes for convicted criminals". This referred to a policy, adopted by Massachusetts and many other states, of granting brief furloughs to convicts with satisfactory prison records. Dukakis brushed aside the accusation and went on to win the nomination.
But Lee Atwater, campaign manager fot Bush, discovered that during one such furlough Willie Horton, an African American who was serving time in a Massachusetts prison for rape and assault, hand stabbed and raped a Maryland woman. "If i can make Willie Horton a household name, "Atwater predicted, "we'll win the election." Atwater produced and aired a television advertisement showing prisoners streaming through a revolving door. After describing Horton's record, a voice intoned:" Dukakis wants to do for American what he's done for Massachusetts." The ad struck a responsive chord among white voters. Dukakis's attempts to shift the focus away from race and crime failed.
The presidential campaign became in effect, a referendum on violent crime in which Dukakis failed the toughness test. Bush won 54 percent of the vote and carried the Electoral College, 426 to 112. |
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