Politics

This is the kind of political writing I can relate to:

One of the few really reliable rules of presidential political warfare [is]: Bugs Bunny always beats Daffy Duck.

Bugs and Daffy represent polar opposites in how to deal with the world. Bugs is at ease, laid back, secure, confident. His lidded eyes and sly smile suggest a sense that he knows the way things work. He's onto the cons of his adversaries. Sometimes he is glimpsed with his elbow on the fireplace mantel of his remarkably well-appointed lair, clad in a smoking jacket. Bugs never raises his voice, never flails at his opponents or at the world. He is rarely an aggressor. When he is pushed too far and must respond, he borrows a quip from Groucho Marx: "Of course, you realize this means war." And then, whether his foe is hapless hunter Elmer Fudd, varmint-shooting Yosemite Sam, or a raging bull, Bugs always prevails.

Daffy Duck, by contrast, is ever at war with a hostile world. He fumes, he clenches his fists, his eyes bulge, and his entire body tenses with fury. His response to bad news is a sibilant sneer ("Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin!"). Daffy is constantly frustrated, sometimes by outside forces, sometimes by his own overwrought response to them. In one classic duel with Bugs, the two try to persuade Elmer Fudd to shoot the other—until Daffy, tricked by Bugs' wordplay, screams, "Shoot me now!"

In every modern presidential election in which the candidates have personified a clear choice between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Bugs has prevailed. Go back to 1960, the first campaign in which television was the clear dominant medium. John "Bugs" Kennedy was cool, restrained, ironic. Richard "Daffy" Nixon was brooding, suspicious, scowling. Look at 1980, when Ronald Reagan's sunny approach to the campaign and to the world stood in sharp contrast to President Jimmy Carter's talk of a crisis of the spirit. Or think about 2000, when George W. Bush suggested a candidate who could easily live with defeat, as opposed to Al Gore, who seemed wound far tighter.

Pretty true, that.

"What's up, Doc?" vs. "You're despicable!"