CONVENTION '96: A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR HELPS THE MEDICINE GO DOWN

THE CANDIDATE'S SPEECH UNLOCKED THE PARADOX OF HIS CAMPAIGN: CAN HE DEMAND SELF-DISCIPLINE BY APPEALING TO SELF-INTEREST?

It was no accident that Travis Tritt sang, in the convention's closing hymn, "I wish I could turn the clock back/to the way my daddy said it was before." Nor that the most powerful moment of Bob Dole's acceptance speech came when he invoked the honor of the father he loved, standing all the way on the train from Kansas to Michigan to visit the son he thought was dying in the hospital. For months the campaign has been played as a custody fight--who would be the better father of our country; whom would you trust, Clinton or Dole, to leave...

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