“Until 1980, he had been in the moderate wing Republican Party, backing abortion rights family planning and the ERA. But by the time he sought the presidency in 1988, he recast himself as a hard-line conservative, opposing abortion, pledging not to raise taxes (in spite of the huge deficit), supporting constitutional amendments requiring balanced budgets and allowing school prayer, and building ties to conservative Christian groups. Running against Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, a bland technocrat whom he initially trailed in the polls, Bush ran an ugly negative campaign. In a measure of how much liberalism had become delegitimized during the Reagan years, Bush’s main charge against Dukakis was simply that he was a liberal. The Republican campaign calculated that being labeled the “L word”, as Bush called it, would have much the same affect that charges of communist sympathy once had.”

p.409-410

These campaign tactics are reminiscent of the red scare. Technically in the shadows of the second red scare- Bush switched views almost 180 degrees between the time he entered office as Vice President and running for President, seemingly in order to create a stir and take shots against Mayor Dukakis. This showed the strength of Reaganism and I find it interesting to see a person in office change their view so drastically (even though I am sure he is not the only one). Its amazing to me haw they sway to meet the wants of the people; quite possibly not being the best candidate yet altering themself to serve their campaigns.