r of California, a Democrat. The Republican-controlled New Hampshire Legislature recently voted to abolish the death penalty; the Democratic governor vetoed the bill. Perhaps the best way to understand how the politics of the death penalty is shifting is to view it as a tale of two Rickys: In January 1992, Arkansas Gov Bill Clinton interrupted his presidential campaign to return home to preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a black man convicted of killing a police officer. Rector had lobotomized himself with a bullet to his head; he was so incapacitated that he asked that the pie served at his last meal be saved for "later." By not preventing the execution of a mentally impaired man, Clinton was sending a strong message to voters: the era of soft-on-crime Democrats was over. Even now, Al Gore doesn't dare step out front on death-penalty issues. After a spate of,well-publicized cases in which innocent men were sentenced to die, the nation's death-penalty debate seems to be taking on new urgency. Crime, after all, is down. But the annual total of executions in the United States is still rising, principally because appeals create long delays between a prisoner's sentencing and execution. A graphic history of the American way of death: Ricky McGinn's case presented a different opportunity for Bush. While the decision to grant a stay was largely based on common sense and the merits of the case, it was convenient, too. In 1999, Talk magazine caught Bush making fun of Kayla Faye Tucker, the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. Earlier this year, at a campaign debate sponsored by CNN, the cameras showed the governor chuckling over the case of Calvin Burdine, whose lawyer fell asleep at his trial. In going the extra mile for McGinn over the objections of the appeals court and parole board, Bush looked prudent and blunted some of the criticism of how he vetoed a bill establishing a public defenders' office in Texas and ma...
