7 hours agoFormer Bill Clinton advisor David Gergen dies
Periskopi(a year ago)
(a year ago)David Gergen, a veteran of the “inside the Beltway” who helped shape public images of the four presidents, mostly republican, and who, after a turning editor, followed an old route from an internal political person to a TV commentator, died Thursday in Lexington, Mass. He was 83 years old. Death [...]
His death, in a community of pensioners, was caused by malaria, said his son, Christopher. Mr. Gergen, writes The New York Times.
It was Gergen who invented a replica in the 1980 presidential elections that helped secure victory for Republican candidate Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter, the incumbent Democrat. In that era of high inflation, high interest rates and a national psychic injured by holding 52 Americans from Iran, Carter was already in trouble. The final issue came in a televised debate a week before the elections, when Reagan asked viewers a question suggested by Gergen affecting political salaries: “Are you better than you were four years ago?”
For many Americans, the answer was no.
The rhetorical questions have great powers”, Gergen said years later.
It's one of those things that sometimes give you gold,” he said. When you're out there begging in the river, sometimes you grab a piece of gold. ”
Gergen produced as many of these pieces as he could by writing speeches, by informing news reporters, by establishing communications strategies and helping to determine the agenda for four presidents: Republicans Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Mr. Ford. Reagan and then a Democrat, Bill Clinton. /Periscope/
