November 2, 1992: Wall Street Journal Predicts ‘Vampire Liberals’ Will Control Clinton White House, Supreme Court

On the eve of the election victory by presidential candidate Bill Clinton (D-AR), the Wall Street Journal publishes an op-ed titled “Dracula Liberalism,” which sardonically portrays liberals as vampires and Clinton as their prey. “The Clinton campaign, if you choose to believe, has driven a stake through the heart of American liberalism,” it writes. But the “dead” liberals may yet rise: “Like [famed actor] Bela Lugosi, the liberals possess great, destructive strength. They have the power of hypnosis.… (Has anyone checked the necks recently of [Supreme Court] Justices [David] Souter and [Anthony] Kennedy?)” If Clinton wins the presidency, the Journal writes, “the liberal undead would produce a great many fitful pre-dawn hours for a young President Clinton.… [I]f Bill Clinton wins, don’t bother to fax your congratulations to the White House. Send cloves of garlic instead.” [Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 61] Editorialist Otis Pike will write two days later that the Journal editorial concluded “what has seemed a daily barrage predicting a dreadful fate for the nation under a Clinton presidency,” even though the Journal’s own reporters were simultaneously running stories with headlines such as “Post-Election Investment Environment Is Seen as Little Changed by Who Wins.” [Newhouse News Service, 11/4/1992]