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George H.W. Bush at 100: The last WASP president
The Hill ^ | 06/12/2024 | ELIOT WILSON

Posted on 06/12/2024 7:25:57 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27

Today marks the centenary of the birth of George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st president of the United States. With one exception — his eldest son in 2004 — he is the last Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote.

He was a remarkable man in many ways, having been decorated as a U.S. Navy pilot during World War II, and his resume before the presidency was broad. After becoming a successful oil executive, he was a two-term congressman, unsuccessful candidate for the Senate, ambassador to the United Nations and to China, chairman of the Republican National Committee and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Bush seems now a figure of a truly bygone age. He was a relatively low-key vice president to Ronald Reagan by choice rather than imposition, learning from his Democratic predecessor Walter Mondale that being effective as VP in Washington owed a lot to avoiding conflict with White House staff and cabinet secretaries. He was also aware that the previous Republican vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, had become mired in disputes with other members of the administration by trying to insert himself into the decision-making process.

(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: bush; georgehwbush; last; president; wasp
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To: dfwgator

This is in 1983 VP GhwB and guvnah billy cokenose clinton.

Wallace is in a wheelchair, paralyzed by Artie Bremer, and Lurleen had died in office in 1968, before Wallace’s run in 1972.

Bill is drinking a Diet Pepsi (in the South!!) and appears to have a woodie under his left arm holding the can, with a goofy grin. Priapus incarnate. And now, he’s got tertiary neurosyphilis acc. to colleagues who know. Got the gait and the long vacant eye stare, he also wanders (recently seen).


41 posted on 06/12/2024 9:18:10 AM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

[Simpson]


I could see it. Simpson was quick on his feet and no one doubted his gravitas. When Quayle responded to media questions, you could almost visualize the gears clacking away. Not a good look.

It’s a bit unfair, but Quayle was simultaneously too youthful and good-looking, but lacked the kind of vocal timbre that Trump has either cultivated or comes naturally, that projects gravitas. It’s shallow, but voters are shallow - if he had Trump’s voice, Quayle might have caught fire. The way he came off, Quayle was a drag on Bush’s ticket.


42 posted on 06/12/2024 9:29:08 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: Zhang Fei

Sorry to ramble on and on but I always wondered what a second Bush term would have looked like .If he never said read my lips I think he would have won.


43 posted on 06/12/2024 9:33:56 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Bush looking at his watch during the debate, was another big moment in that campaign. He mailed it in.


44 posted on 06/12/2024 9:36:16 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

[Sorry to ramble on and on but I always wondered what a second Bush term would have looked like .If he never said read my lips I think he would have won.]


I agree the odds would have been better, but the coup de grace was delivered by the midget from Texas.


45 posted on 06/12/2024 9:40:37 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: Zhang Fei

No Perot and Bush wins


46 posted on 06/12/2024 9:42:12 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

I wouldn’t be so sure of that.


47 posted on 06/12/2024 9:42:32 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Never liked the term “WASP.” Here in North Jersey many of not most of the folks whose ancestors go back to Colonial times are of Dutch or even Palantine German ancestry. Also, Clinton and GWB are of colonial era English ancestry (as was Obama on his mother’s side).


48 posted on 06/12/2024 9:42:35 AM PDT by Clemenza
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To: dfwgator

[Bush looking at his watch during the debate, was another big moment in that campaign. He mailed it in.]


Dubya learned from Bush pere - every public gesture, facial expression and word has to be carefully guarded, lest it be taken out of context and used as a weapon by the other side. That’s allegedly the source of “fool me twice, won’t get fooled again”. “Shame on me” might have been used as a sound bite against him.


49 posted on 06/12/2024 9:46:53 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

[No Perot and Bush wins]


Indeed.


50 posted on 06/12/2024 9:49:03 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: Zhang Fei

But we got clinton and the rest is history


51 posted on 06/12/2024 9:49:57 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

[But we got clinton and the rest is history]


Many moons ago, LP Hartley wrote - the past is a foreign country - they do things differently there. In that sense, we have sojourned through several foreign countries since, without having needed a valid passport to make the journey.


52 posted on 06/12/2024 9:58:19 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: Zhang Fei

Interesting


53 posted on 06/12/2024 9:59:40 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
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To: John S Mosby

Oh for gods sake. You couldn’t be more wrong.


54 posted on 06/12/2024 10:09:01 AM PDT by napscoordinator (DeSantis is a beast! Florida is the freest state in the country! )
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To: Zhang Fei

I read once that the reason Bush looked at his watch was that the moderators were letting Clinton talk longer than he was supposed to.


55 posted on 06/12/2024 10:44:35 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: MayflowerMadam
There have been only three Presidents who were not of Northwestern European origin and from a Protestant family: Kennedy, Obama, and Biden. And in the cases of Obama and Biden, they have Protestants of British colonial descent in their family trees.
56 posted on 06/12/2024 11:20:41 AM PDT by Wallace T.
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To: Verginius Rufus

[I’m\ read once that the reason Bush looked at his watch was that the moderators were letting Clinton talk longer than he was supposed to.]


I seem to recall the same, but it was an awkward moment in a campaign full of them.


57 posted on 06/12/2024 12:07:41 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: John S Mosby
Trump's mother was Scots.

That would make him White (for a certain value of "White") and Protestant but not Anglo-Saxon.

Most people labeled as WASPs are not.

58 posted on 06/12/2024 12:13:44 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Roses are red, Violets are blue, I love being on the government watch list, along with all of you.)
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To: nwrep; Dr. Sivana
Why is he the last WASP POTUS? Why aren’t Clinton or Chimpy not WASPs? Why isn’t Trump considered a WASP? What kind of nonsense is that?

Freeper Dr. Sivana posted this on another thread recently:

Here is a definition from Perplexity ai:

Some key points about WASPs:

The term emerged in the 1960s to describe the elite upper class of American society that had roots tracing back to the original English Protestant settlers of the 17th century.

WASPs historically held a position of power, wealth, and influence in American society, politics, academia, and culture for several centuries.

The WASP establishment was seen as promoting its own cultural values and traditions derived from Northern European Protestant backgrounds.

Over time, the WASP elite’s influence has declined as American society became more diverse and meritocratic, though remnants of the old establishment persist in certain institutions.

The term can have negative connotations of exclusivity, snobbery, and discrimination against non-WASPs, though it was originally a sociological descriptor.


The term's reference to northerners would exclude Clinton. Many of the southern whites trace their lineage to the 1800s when there was a large migration from Scotland. Most Scots were Gaels or Celts, not Anglo-Saxons.

I suppose Trump could be ethnically be called a WASP from his German side, but his forebearers migrated much later -- his Trump grandfather from Germany and his mother from Scotland.

59 posted on 06/12/2024 12:28:41 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
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To: Zhang Fei
Quayle...lacked the kind of vocal timbre that Trump has either cultivated or comes naturally, that projects gravitas. It’s shallow, but voters are shallow

The voice issue certainly didn't help Sarah Palin. She badly needed a vocal coach.

60 posted on 06/12/2024 12:38:38 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
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