There’s been plenty of debate in the political media lately about whether or not this election is likely to be—or already is—a rerun of 1988. (I.e., culture warring, flag burning, Willie Horton ads, etc.) If you want to relive the actual election of ’88 for comparison purposes, you might want to watch PBS’s American Experience: The Presidents documentary, George H.W. Bush. The first of two parts airs tonight, running from Bush’s early years through that election and the early years of Bush’s presidency. (Part 2, starting with the Gulf War, debuts tomorrow.) The biography is largely boilerplate and probably not especially surprising for political buffs, but it is worthwhile in the oh-yeah-I-forgot-about-that sense.
And there are the occasional weird archival moments, as when the film reproduces a handwritten note from Ronald Reagan to President-elect Bush, written on stationery with a cartoon of birds pecking on an elephant, and the caption: “Don’t Let the Turkeys Get You Down.” I believe Thomas Jefferson first wrote that.