vid Karnes of Nebraska. Bentsen, simultaneously
running to retain his Senate seat in Texas, easily
defeated Republican Beau Boulter. The most one-
sided contest was the race in Maine, where incum-
bent Democratic senator George J. Mitchell amassed
nearly 82 percent of the vote over his Republican
adversary, Jasper S. Wyman.
Impact The elections evinced a continuing conser-
vative slant among the American electorate, though
there were certainly signs that the confidence that
the people had placed in Ronald Reagan and his
agenda was less effectively translated into support
for anyone other than Reagan. It remains open to
question to how great an extent Reagan’s residual
popularity, the effectiveness of the Bush-Atwater at-
tack strategy, and Dukakis’s inability to present him-
self as a realistic and effective alternative to Rea-
ganism played their role in the presidential election.
Certainly, all factors have to be taken into account.
Bush’s pledges to continue the Reagan program and
his failure to measure up to some of its principles
(and particularly his campaign promise of “no new
taxes”) would come back to haunt him in his unsuc-
cessful 1992 bid for reelection against Bill Clinton.
Further Reading
Germond, Jack W., and Jules Whitcover.Whose Broad
Stripes and Bright Stars? The Trivial Pursuit of the
Presidency, 1988. New York: Warner Books, 1989.
Offers a reasonably impartial narrative based on
the paraphrased interviews of one hundred par-
ticipants in the 1988 campaigns.
Goldman, Paul, et al.The Quest for the Presidency:
1988. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. A de-
tailed and often sarcastically witty account of the
scandals, strategies, blunders, and personal traits
of the various presidential contenders and the
staffers who ran their campaigns.
Sheehy, Gail.Character: America’s Search for Leadership.
New York: William Morrow, 1988. Though writ-
ten in 1988 when the election had not yet been
decided, the book probes the characters, motives,
strengths, and weaknesses of the major candi-
dates and ventures observations that later seemed
prophetic.
Raymond Pierre Hylton
See also Atwater, Lee; Bush, George H. W.; Con-
gress, U.S.; Conservatism in U.S. politics; Dukakis,
Michael; Elections in the United States, midterm;
Elections in the United States, 1980; Elections in the
United States, 1984; Hart, Gary; Horton, William;
Jackson, Jesse; Liberalism in U.S. politics; Quayle,
Dan; Robertson, Pat; Sununu, John H.Elway, John
Identification Hall of Fame professional football
player
Born June 28, 1960; Port Angeles, WashingtonA dominant force in football beginning in the 1980’s,
Elway is recognized as one of the game’s greatest players.John Elway played National Collegiate Athletic Asso-
ciation football as the quarterback for the Stanford
Cardinal from 1979 to 1982. During that time, he
passed for 9,349 yards and 77 touchdowns. Elway was
a consensus college All-American in 1982. He was
also an excellent baseball player and batted .361 for
Stanford in 1982. Drafted by the New York Yankees
in 1981, Elway played a season of minor-league ball
in the Yankee farm system.
Elway was drafted into the National Football
League (NFL) by the Baltimore Colts in 1983. Soon
thereafter, he was traded to the Denver Broncos. Dur-
ing the 1986-1987 season, he led the Broncos to the
Super Bowl. Although the Broncos lost, Elway threw
for 304 yards and a touchdown. In the 1987-1988 cam-
paign, Elway received the NFL Most Valuable Player
(MVP) Award and again led the Broncos to the Super
Bowl, where they were defeated by the Washington
Redskins. Elway led the Broncos back to the Super
Bowl again during the 1989-1990 season, where they
were soundly defeated by the San Francisco 49ers. Af-
ter three failed attempts, Elway would finally lead the
Broncos to victory in the 1997 and 1998 Super Bowls.
During his career with the Broncos from 1983 to
1998, Elway completed 4,123 passes, threw for 51,475
yards and 300 touchdowns, had a completion per-
centage of .569, and rushed for 3,407 yards and thirty-
three touchdowns during season play. During the
playoffs, including five Super Bowls, he completed
355 passes, threw for 4,964 yards and twenty-seven
touchdowns, had a completion percentage of .545,
and rushed for 461 yards and six touchdowns. He was
selected to play in the NFL Pro Bowl nine times.Impact John Elway is the only player in NFL history
to throw for over 3,000 yards and rush for over 200The Eighties in America Elway, John 333