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A good laugh goes a long way toward dulling the pain of politics' slings and arrows -- provided you were not the politician poked by the tip of Pat Oliphant's pen. For the rest of us, his light-hearted parodies proved to be a welcome remedy for the rough and tumble politics of the Bush and Clinton eras. The magic of is artistry is reflected in his ability to capture the defining physical characteristics of his subjects, while also making complex stories understandable and humorous.
In 1992, it wasn't the Republican and Democratic party nominees who were generating buzz. That honor was reserved for a then-obscure independent, Texas billionaire Ross Perot... at least for a while.
In 1996, Oliphant captured subtle traits of both major candidates, including Republican nominee Bob Dole's tendency to refer to himself in the third-person.
In 1998, his Rube Goldberg machine helped us understand the tricky, unintended political consequences of impeaching a sitting President -- a lesson current Democrats would be wise to remember.
Heading into the 2000 Presidential election, Texas governor George W. Bush, the eldest son of former President George H.W. Bush, was susceptible to the image of a spoiled scion, fueled in part by a hard-fought campaign for the Republican nomination against Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain. The younger Bush's nomination battles with McCain would soon be eclipsed by a controversial recount following the November general election. Bush's Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore, won the national popular vote but came up short in the Electoral College following a legal battle over disputed vote counts in Florida. Gore became the fourth candidate in American history to win the popular vote while losing the Electoral College. (Hillary Clinton, of course, became the fifth in 2016.) |