A Candidate's Biography Doesn't Matter

"A candidate's actual biography doesn't matter; George H.W. Bush flew fighter palnes when he was a teenager, and he couldn't overcome the "wimp factor" against Ronald Reagan, whose primary combat experience was battling his way to the bar at the Brown Derby. In the three major national elections of his life, George W. Bush, who couldn't find Alabama while he was serving in the National Guard, defeated three men- Al Gore, John McCain, and John Kerry- who had volunteered to go to Vietnam, and he did so by out butching them. Kerry's awkwardness in hunting clothes somehow trumped Bush's fear of horses."

- Esquire, August 2007- "The Beauty Contest"