Republicans Are Acting Like Democrats. Democrats Are Acting Like Republicans“You know the difference in Democrats and Republicans?” Bill Clinton
said in a 2003 speech. “In every presidential election, Democrats want to fall in love. Republicans just fall in line.”
Clinton’s aphorism — which he attributed to a friend — has become a
part of the conventional wisdom about how the parties behave. And there was more than a bit of truth to it when Clinton made his remarks. The previous three open Republican nominations — in 1988, 1996 and 2000 — had been won easily by establishment-backed candidates. Vice President George H.W. Bush won 41 of 50 states in the Republican primaries of 1988, Bob Dole won 44 in 1996, and George W. Bush won 43 in 2000. With the exception of Al Gore’s 50-state sweep in 2000, Democratic nominations during this period, including Clinton’s win in 1992, took longer to resolve, with several candidates competing for different factions of the Democratic Party before it settled on a nominee.
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