Sealing the deal
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- On July 16, 1992, Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton ended his speech with these words:
"I end tonight where it all began for me: I still believe in a place called Hope."
And with that, Clinton emerged from the 1992 Democratic Party convention at Madison Square Garden in New York with a ton of political momentum -- enough to propel him to the White House and defeat an incumbent president named George Bush.
Now, another Democratic challenger wants to do exactly the same thing. And John Kerry is looking to Bill Clinton's 1992 convention playbook for guidance.
"Bill Clinton's 1992 convention is the most successful convention on record. Until that convention, Bill Clinton was running behind. Not only was he running behind, he was running third going into the Democratic convention in 1992. Perot was first, Bush was second, and Clinton seemed hopeless. The convention turned everything around," says CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.
Kerry advisers recognize the carefully choreographed Clinton convention helped introduce the then former Arkansas governor to a then still large chunk of the American public that didn't like President Bush but was not yet ready to commit to Clinton.
Everything was scripted, including his walk to the convention from Macy's Department store and the biographical film produced by his Hollywood friends, Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason.
The Kerry team has been working for months preparing for this convention. And yes, there will be a slick Hollywood-produced film that will tell his life story.
The Kerry team is also studying the failed 1988 presidential campaign of another Massachusetts politician, Michael Dukakis, but for another reason. Dukakis emerged from his convention in Atlanta with a big bounce in the polls -- only to see it disappear in the subsequent weeks after George Bush's convention in New Orleans.
CNN's Schneider says, "George Bush moved into the lead at that convention and never lost it. How did he do it? He reminded voters that things were better under Ronald Reagan, so why would you ever want to change?"
The latest public opinion polls show this race is still very much neck and neck -- well within the margin of error.
