(3 of 5)
George and Barbara Bush are part Episcopacy--they met as a result of being born into the same social class. Bill and Hillary Clinton are part Mandarin--they met in the library of Yale Law School. It could be argued that the Clintons are the first White House occupants who are pure products of the meritocratic machinery that makes Mandarins. Both grew up in provincial obscurity without any connections to the big time. Both, by their early 20s, had been clearly marked for membership in the Establishment by virtue of their accumulation of golden educational credentials. They filled their Administration with other Mandarins and, at least in the early going, tried to govern from the Mandarin mind-set, which is secular, rational and optimistic and seeks to solve problems by devising perfect systems run by experts.
Last year's revolt against the Clintons led by Newt Gingrich was all about the dislike, even hatred, that Talents and Lifers feel for Mandarins. Gingrich and some of his key lieutenants are failed Mandarins--recall that as a historian, Gingrich was denied tenure at a third-rank college--ho despise the Mandarin path for its air of self-satisfaction and for having been so blind to the abilities of Gingrich & Co. when young. When Gingrich rails against the corrupt "elite," he's talking about the Mandarins--and hitting a nerve. Mandarin resentment has enabled the Republican Party, whose home has always been in the upper half of the income distribution, to present itself successfully as the party of the little people.
If the Republican coalition is mainly made up of Talents and Lifers, then the Republicans' problem in 1996 is going to be preventing these two groups from beginning to squabble with each other. Constitutionally, Talents and Lifers are quite different types. Talents are individualistic; they tend to look upon untrammeled opportunity as the highest good. They're the opposite of mild mannered, and they are drawn to big, bold-relief political views such as the idea that taxation is theft or that abortion is murder. Lifers are conservative in the more literal sense of the word--they're not temperamentally disposed toward radical change. They have chosen to orient their life toward steadiness, loyalty and teamwork, so they put a high value on those qualities. Talents brag about wanting to destroy the system; Lifers like systems.
As much as a politician can be one, Bob Dole is a Lifer. He has represented Kansas in Congress continuously since 1960, sticking to it and through the years steadily moving upward. His virtues are the Lifer virtues of constancy, leadership, persistence and credit sharing. He is often charged with changing his views too readily. The honest answer to that, which he can never give, would be: Life isn't about what your views are; it's about what you get done. Having positions on issues, especially social issues like abortion and gay rights that aren't central to the ongoing work of the national government, is peripheral to a Lifer like Dole, so changing positions doesn't seem like that big a deal. What's central is running the government machinery well, which to the Lifer mind is essentially a nonideological job requiring toughness and taciturnity. Dole obviously far outranks Clinton in those departments, therefore by his own lights he's the most deserving of the presidency.