In terms of style, last month's carefully choreographed Democratic Convention borrowed a leaf from the Republicans. But the even more strictly scripted Republican gathering borrowed the very themes of the Democrats. Speaker after speaker invoked the "F" word from Mario Cuomo's 1984 Democratic keynote speech: family. Change, the mantra of Atlanta, was intoned just as frequently in New Orleans: Ronald Reagan used it 14 times in his farewell speech. Even compassion found its way into the Superdome, with George Bush talking about a "kinder and gentler nation."
The Republicans expropriated not only themes but also a melody. At the close of...
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