Wikipedia has a decent summary. I don't remember any great amount of negative advertising on either side. The late-night comedians made a lot of jokes about Dole's age, and Dole helped that issue along by managing to fall off of a stage at a campaign event, by referring to the LA Dodgers as the Brooklyn Dodgers (the Dodgers left Brooklyn before the 1958 season), and with his odd habit of referring to himself in the third person.

Except for the age issue and the fact that Bob Dole was also a decorated veteran (badly wounded in WWII), I don't see this election as comparable to that one at all. Clinton was an incumbent president with all the built-in advantages of incumbency, he had no significant primary challenge, which makes his situation the exact opposite of Obama's, and Dole didn't have the slimy Karl Rove acolytes running his campaign.

Clinton had a comfortable lead in the polling from the start.

The Clinton campaign did manage, though, to tie Dole to Newt Gingrich in the aftermath of the budget standoff that shut down major portions of the government for about 3 weeks at the end of 1995, a tactic that backfired badly on the Republicans, and especially on Gingrich.

I guess if that election has any lessons about the present one, it is this: Even with the advantages of incumbency, uncontested primary, and a lead in the polls, the Clinton campaign still worked to frame the narrative about their opponent and to tie him to the most unpopular politician in his party. With none of the advantages that Clinton enjoyed in 1996, Obama needs to work even harder to do the same thing to McCain. And he shouldn't wait until the convention is over to do that; you can be sure the McCain will have a slew of negative ads to release at that point to try to dampen any "bounce" that Obama might enjoy from the convention aftermath.

Posted at August 18, 2008 7:36 PM in response to McCain Outspending Obama By Hundreds Of Thousands In Many Core Battleground States

It's sad, isn't it? When I was a kid, I used to think that the FBI was the ultimate in clean policework and their crime lab was the ultimate in forensic science, but then that was at the time that Robert Stack was playing Eliot Ness on television, and I'm wondering now if they didn't just have better PR back then.

Posted at August 18, 2008 2:08 PM in response to FBI Agrees To Release More Details From Anthrax Probe, Backpedals On Key Elements

And while we are at it: it's "closed-door sessions," not "close-door sessions." Normally it's the past (or present) participle form that is used as an adjective, though idioms like "open door policy" are the exception to the rule.

Posted at August 18, 2008 1:34 PM in response to FBI Agrees To Release More Details From Anthrax Probe, Backpedals On Key Elements

If our side is changing only to accomodate that agenda in an bipartisan manner rather than fighting against it, then all we've done is declared them the winner.

My thoughts exactly. We do not need bipartisanship on the Lieberman model.

As the song says in another context, "Ya gotta know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em." Tough-minded bipartisanship knows when to insist on principle, when to concede on fine points, and when the middle ground is solid.

The current Republican party regards bipartisanship as "do what the Republicans want." They concede nothing. That's not bipartisanship; that's caving in to a bully. It's because the Democratic leadership hasn't yet seemed to realize that that the approval rating of Congress is in the single digits.

People old enough to have lived through a few difficult changes in their lives know that change is difficult. Obama is too cool to make them believe he gets that.

Thank you! Yes, I am one of those "older voters" and I want to see some evidence that Obama is committed to making the hard choices to implement this change agenda he has talked about so much. I want to see evidence that he is willing to call Republicans out on their obstructionism and their low-road propagandizing. I want to think that when push comes to shove, he will be willing to do the same sort of thing that Bill Clinton did when he called Gingrich's bluff on the impasse over the 1996 budget.

Posted at August 8, 2008 4:31 PM in response to New McCain Ad: "Life In The Spotlight Must Be Grand"

lengthened Pyramids

The word you are looking for is obelisk.

(Phallic symbol hunters can click the link to satisfy their recommended daily allowance phallic images. Of special interest in that regard: Hatshepsut's fallen [or pulled down] obelisk -- Hatshepsut being one of Egypt's few female pharoahs. Hatshepsut's successors made a concerted attempt to remove her from the historical record, a successful female king being seen as a dangerous precedent.)

Posted at August 7, 2008 5:08 PM in response to Keith Olbermann makes an ass of himself

Psssst. This is when you are supposed to apologize for casting aspersions on her mental health.

Posted at August 7, 2008 3:52 PM in response to Keith Olbermann makes an ass of himself

It really is frustating. Dems are smart, why can't they come up with the same garbage against republicans?

Because Democrats take elections seriously, they don't regard them as garbage. Democrats think elections should be about issues, not bamboozlement.

But in recent decades, Republicans have shown themselves in being more interested in generating sufficient noise to drown out substantive debate. Just as they do on talk shows. I suppose Democrats could choose to add to the noise, but is that really good for the country?

Posted at August 7, 2008 3:44 PM in response to McCain Mocks Obama's Accurate Claim About Tire Pressure

Companies lose leases if they do not produce after a certain time.

Do they? Not according to this:

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/images/Documents/hr6251.pdf

Technically, perhaps they are supposed to, but that is not what is happening in practice. The leases just keep getting renewed. There was a great hew and cry from the oil companies and their minions in Congress when HR6251 proposed a "use it or lose it" rule similar to what the coal companies have to abide by.

Posted at August 6, 2008 12:51 PM in response to How to Convert the "Drill Here, Drill Now" Average Joes

Your link doesn't seem to go anywhere...

Posted at August 1, 2008 4:37 PM in response to Joe Klein: I Was "Wrong" To Call McCain An Honorable Man

Allusion, not illusion. Otherwise, it sounds like Obama is hallucinating!

Posted at August 1, 2008 4:32 PM in response to Joe Klein: I Was "Wrong" To Call McCain An Honorable Man