The Whatever Campaign
Even as future conventions become cable events, the acceptance speech will remain a major network moment. This one played well in part because Dole put himself in the proper historical setting. The autobiographical references and wartime elegies were powerful. He addressed the age issue squarely and looked fit enough to serve – an important threshold. But if Dole himself didn’t dodder, his message did. The speech was an eloquent mess: focused on the cold-war past instead of the 21st century and full of inconsistencies that may haunt him in debates....