March 1988: Conqueror Bush

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Although recorded and released in 1987, Appetite for Destruction,
the debut album of Guns N' Roses would become arguably the most identifiable pop music backdrop to the year 1988. The MTV rotation in the spring of 1988 was dominated by the popular video for the single "Welcome to the Jungle," 

After the Maine caucus, word was out: Dole was broken. Within a week it would all be proven true.

Having made his singular stroke of history in Maine, Bush could get back to Reagan's playbook of conquest. Eight years before,  Reagan had beaten him badly in New Hampshire, but it was the South where Reagan had sealed his victory and had become the American Colossus, striding like a broad-shouldered giant across the region's primaries, and strangling any doubt that he was the anointed one to challenge Jimmy Carter.

Bush had spent eight long years for this moment to come, and now it would play out as he wanted.

The South was solid, but it demanded a strong leader, one it could unite behind. The South saw through the pretenders who were not up to the job of being President. The South would see Dole as the weak one, and Bush as the stronger. It would toss aside Robertson as a stereotype (the South knows preachers well and doesn't want them to go into politics. Such has typically been defect of thinking of the North and West). Kemp of course would be nothing but a curiosity to them, a former football player for a team they never each watched. Only Bush was the leader the South could depend on to be authentically American and strong.

This was the moment where eight long years in Reagan's shadow would pay off like a mature bond.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 30, 1988

First came the warm-up on March 5 in South Carolina, the state that was allowed by deep historical tradition going back to Calhoun to be the bellwether of the South.

Bush dominated there with 49%.  The results were a gut punch to Dole and a sign of bad things to come.

Three days later Super Tuesday Bush blew out the entire field from Virginia to Texas, and picked up more solid wins in New England. The final total: 16 states for Bush, many by massive landslides.  For Dole, zero. Robertson won Washington State---another kooky anomaly right at the end of the evening in the messianic Northwest. But Dole almost lost to Bush even there, for a distant second place.

The March 8 results were like a door slamming shut on the rest of the field, His goal had been to inspire doom in them, and he had pulled it off.

Dole's campaign was mortally wounded but he had to keep it going, almost out of a sense of pride to see it through. On March 15, he made his last real hopeful gasp in Illinois, Reagan's birthplace, which instead gave a solid 55% victory to Bush, echoing the South and putting to rest any doubt that Bush could win across the country.

Kemp saw the handwriting on the wall and soon dropped out, endorsing Bush as he left. Dole kept it going through Connecticut at the end of the month, almost as if to provide a bit of drama, and be the last one standing for the next election.

On March 29 the results from the Nutmeg State, the location of Bush's alma mater Yale, and the state that Bush's father had represented in the United States Senate, were a blunt message to Dole: "why are you still in the race? Bush is our man."

By the end of the evening, Dole had dropped out and endorsed Bush.

Wikipedia (public domain): "The arms of Yale University, often referred to as the shield of the university. The device on the seal, a book bearing the Hebrew phrase אורים ותמים (English: Urim V'Tamim), originates from the early eighteenth century, and its designer is unknown. The arms were illustrated from drawings by Fritz Kredel sometime before 1948. Additional information in Rogers, Bruce, and Lohmann, Carl A. (1948.) The Arms of Yale University and Its Colleges in New Haven. New Haven: Yale University Press. There is minimal innovation upon the pre-1923 design."

Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895-1972). United States Senator
from Connecticut In office
November 5, 1952 – January 3, 1963