The surprises of the 1996 presidential campaign came before parties even nominated their candidates. Bill Clinton got a lucky break. Bob Dole hasn't learned how to campaign.
ABC News political director Hal Bruno shared these observations of Campaign '96 with an audience of more than 400 University alums on campus yesterday. Bruno's presentation was part of a lecture series hosted by the Margaret Waterman Alumnae Group to raise money for student scholarships to the University.
"It was the most static campaign I've ever seen," Bruno said.
Clinton's strong lead in major states since Labor Day made it difficult for media to cover the race unbiased and with continued enthusiasm, he said.
"The hardest part for us was to report this election without calling it over. We didn't want to do that," he said.
Dole's inability to breathe life into his campaign only added to Clinton's strength and widened his margin in the polls, Bruno said.
"He's never developed the skills of the presidential campaign," Bruno said about Dole. "He campaigns like a man falling out of a tree."
Since Dole's first term in the House of Representatives, the former Kansas senator's strength has always been in his abilities to compromise in writing and passing legislation. Compromise, however, didn't rally the Republican party to his side.
"He was constantly driven to the right," Bruno said. Dole's party may have doomed his campaign by urging him to take conservative stances, a tactic that was needed to distance himself from a moderate Democratic opponent and appeal to supporters such as the Christian Coalition, Bruno said.
It was the Republican party's agenda and recent record that opened the door for Clinton's big comeback, Bruno said. After voters "fired" Democratic senators and representatives to express discontent with the Clinton adminstration in 1994, they switched loyalties again after Dole and the Republican Congress shut down the federal government last year, Bruno said.
"A lot of people, including myself, didn't realize the true political significance of (the shutdown)," Bruno said.
Clinton quickly engineered a move to the "middle-of-the-road" on the political spectrum and rode previously Republican-led crusades for a balanced budget all the way to a second term, Bruno said.
Beverly Bole, chair for the lecture series, said her committee chose Bruno for the lecture a year ago, planning ahead for a timely political analysis.
"We wanted somebody who was political at this time," she said. Bole said she was impressed that Bruno was careful to keep his remarks balanced.
"He covered both parties, both sides of the political spectrum," she said.
One audience member was disappointed by the extent to which Bruno's remarks generalized both parties, however.
"I wish he'd been a little more specific," said Janet Warrick, a University alum. "I wished he'd talked a little more about (former Clinton campaign adviser Richard) Morris and how he's engineered Clinton's campaign."
JENNIFER BRADLEY-SWIFT/Daily
ABC News political director Hal Bruno stands in the Michigan League yesterday, where he shared his thoughts on the recent political season.