41: A Portrait of My Father

by George W. Bush

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  ON OCTOBER 12, 1987, Vice President George Bush formally entered the race for President. He made the announcement in Houston. He promised to continue the policies of the Reagan administration while injecting new ideas of his own. One of those ideas was a pledge that he would repeat often in the months ahead: “I am not going to raise your taxes—period.” His campaign slogan highlighted his experience: “Ready on Day One to Be a Great President.” Everything went well until the balloon drop. Some of the balloons had popped overnight, and as Dad put it, “for a frightening moment it looked like a condom drop—raw rubber appearing from the ceiling.”

  I attended the speech, but I was fuming. On my recommendation, members of our family and campaign aides had given interviews to Newsweek reporter Margaret Warner for a profile about Dad. I expected the story to be objective, so I was shocked to see the cover of the magazine scheduled to hit newsstands that week: “George Bush: Fighting the ‘Wimp Factor.’ ” The thrust of the story was that Dad was not tough enough to be President. I was amazed that anyone who knew his life story—the Navy pilot who fought in World War II, the Congressman who endured death threats to vote for the open-housing bill—could even suggest that he was a wimp. (Twenty-five years later, Newsweek ran a cover story headlined “Romney: The Wimp Factor.” Apparently only Republican candidates are wimps in their eyes.)

  The wimp criticism caused great concern among Dad’s friends and supporters. Many of them had advice for the candidate—and often I was the recipient. I knew it was important not to burden Dad with all the suggestions being given to me. My role was to serve as a filter. At first my filter was not very refined. I remember telling Dad that one of his friends had called with the suggestion “Just be yourself.” He rolled his eyes and said, “Who the hell else would I be?” From that point on, I was more judicious.

  Over the course of the 1988 campaign, I came to understand that most politicians have plenty of professionals giving them advice. What they need from their friends and loved ones is comfort and support. That is one reason why I was so grateful that my brother Marvin, my sister Doro, and their families lived nearby when I was President. They frequently came to the White House for family dinners, and Marv would drop by to watch sports or work out. They had no agenda. They just wanted to help me relax. I tried to provide that same kind of support for Dad.

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  IN THE WEEKS leading up to the Iowa caucus, CBS News ran a profile on each of the major candidates. There was some anxiety that Dan Rather would not cover the same topics that other candidates had discussed on CBS—their backgrounds, families, and experiences—but rather would exploit the opportunity to relitigate Iran-Contra. The campaign agreed to the interview, but it insisted that the interview be aired live, so that Rather’s producers could not chop up Dad’s quotes or take them out of context.

  Shortly before the interview, Dad’s top media adviser, the savvy Roger Ailes, heard rumblings from some of his friends in the TV world that Rather was planning to focus exclusively on Iran-Contra. Sure enough, as Dad sat waiting to begin the interview, he watched as Rather played a six-minute video reviewing the allegations related to Iran-Contra. Rather’s first question was why Dad continued to employ an adviser who had been involved in the scandal. Dad explained that the aide had been cleared of any wrongdoing. After several more questions on Iran-Contra, Dad told Rather that he found the topic of the discussion to be “a rehash” and a misrepresentation on the part of CBS.

  The anchor pressed on with his cross-examination about Iran-Contra. Dad remained calm, but I knew he was seething. With time ticking down on the interview, Dad reminded the newsman that they had agreed to discuss other topics. When Rather followed up with yet another round of Iran-Contra questions, Dad delivered the knockout punch that he and Roger Ailes had planned.

  “I don’t think it’s fair to judge my whole career by a rehash on Iran,” he said. “How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?”

  Rather seemed stunned by the question, which referred to his most embarrassing moment as a journalist: A few months earlier, he had gotten so angry that his broadcast was being delayed by a U.S. Open tennis match that he stormed off the set to complain to CBS executives. When coverage of the match ended sooner than expected, the anchor desk was empty, and viewers across the country were left with dead air.

  Dad called me from backstage to ask how I thought the interview had gone. There was no sense of triumph or bravado in his voice. It was not in his character to humiliate someone, and I could tell he was anxious about his tough retort to Rather. I, on the other hand, was thrilled with his performance.

  “You knocked it out of the park,” I assured him.

  Most viewers agreed. The phone lines at CBS lit up with callers objecting to Dan Rather’s rudeness. The Bush campaign was flooded with calls congratulating Dad. One thing was for sure: There wasn’t much talk about the wimp factor anymore.

  For his part, Dan Rather’s coverage of Dad’s presidency continued to be negative. When I took office, he seemed to extend the grudge to me. The low point came in 2004, when he aired allegations about my National Guard service that were based on forged documents. Once again, the public outcry was intense. This time, Dan Rather resigned from his job at CBS.

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  DAD’S INTERVIEW with Dan Rather brought a surge in support, but it wasn’t enough to win the opening battle in the Republican primary season: the Iowa caucus. The favorite in Iowa was Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, Dad’s old rival from the 1980 campaign who had since become the Majority Leader of the Senate. Dole exploited his home-field advantage in Iowa. His ads stressed his farm-state roots and assured Iowa voters that he was one of them. As expected, Dole won in Iowa, collecting 37 percent of the vote.

  The shock was that George Bush finished third, behind the televangelist Pat Robertson. Robertson had no experience as an elected official and held some extreme policy positions. Yet he organized effectively in Iowa, and he correctly predicted that an “invisible army” of supporters would turn out to vote for him—25 percent of the Iowa caucusgoers, to be precise. In retrospect, the 1988 campaign provided the first glimpse of a bloc of voters whose top priority was values. Those voters later became an important part of the constituency that made me a two-term President.

  Dad took 19 percent of the vote. The only major candidates who came in behind him were Jack Kemp, a dynamic Congressman from upstate New York who had first made his name as a quarterback with the Buffalo Bills, and Pete du Pont, a brainy former Congressman and former Governor of Delaware. Al Haig, the former Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff, also picked up a few hundred votes.

  Despite the defeat, Dad remained upbeat. On caucus night, he assured his supporters, “I wanted to do better, but I’m a fighter. I’m going to come back.”

  As the campaign shifted to New Hampshire, Dole had the momentum. The first polls after Iowa showed that he had narrowed Dad’s lead in the Granite State. A few days later, Al Haig dropped out of the race and endorsed Dole. Dole also picked up an endorsement from Don Rumsfeld, President Ford’s former Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense. Dad did not panic. As he knew better than most, Big Mo from Iowa did not always translate into success in New Hampshire.

  As in his past campaigns, Dad resolved that no one would outwork him. The morning after his loss in Iowa, he showed up in New Hampshire before dawn to greet factory workers in Nashua. He embarked on an exhausting schedule of meet-and-greets organized by his effective New Hampshire campaign Chairman, Governor John Sununu. His approach reminded me of his early campaigns in Texas, where he worked hard to develop a personal connection with as many voters as he could.

  Campaigning for President while serving as Vice President required a delicate balance. On one hand, traveling with the vice presidential entourage brought comfort and prestige. On the other hand, the trappings of the office could make him seem detached and al
oof. Dad made it a point to combat that image. He shrunk the size of his entourage and held events at small local venues. He spent one morning at Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, and a pancake house meeting with voters. (Fortunately, he also made time for jogging.) Dad drew on the network of friends and political allies that he had spent his whole career cultivating. He had been loyal to them, and now they returned the favor. One of the highlights of the campaign was a rally with Dad’s friend and fishing buddy Ted Williams (to whom Dad later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom). In Red Sox Nation, it was hard to beat an endorsement from the Splendid Splinter.

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  IN A HEATED political race, the intensity of the campaign trail has a way of bringing out raw emotions. One of those emotions, it seemed to me, was Bob Dole’s resentment of George Bush. Dole attacked Dad as an elitist with “rich and powerful parents” who had not “made a decision in seven years,” while presenting himself as a self-made man who rose up from his hardscrabble roots in Russell, Kansas.

  “Nobody ever handed me anything,” Dole said.

  I wondered whether their different experiences in World War II led Dole to harbor resentment toward Dad. Both had been wounded, but Dad had been able to return to his unit after being shot down, while Dole’s serious injury left him confined to a hospital for the remainder of the war.

  Dad hesitated to turn negative against Dole. Lee Atwater often called to express his frustration that he could not get Dad to sign off on any ads drawing a contrast with Dole. When Dad asked what I thought, I told him that I agreed with Lee. I thought it was important to put Dole on the defensive. Eventually Dad relented, and the campaign aired an ad portraying Dole as “Senator Straddle” for his shifting position on taxes. It was not a particularly harsh attack, but it succeeded in getting under Dole’s skin and providing a clear contrast on an issue that mattered to New Hampshire primary voters.

  As the primary approached, Dole looked bitter and irritable. He told a voter who disagreed with him, “Go back to your cave.” On the night of the primary, Dad won with 38 percent of the vote. Dole finished second with 29 percent. In his victory speech, Dad compared himself to Mark Twain because reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. When Tom Brokaw asked Dad if he had any message for his rival, he said, “Just wish him well and we’ll meet him in the South.”

  When Brokaw asked Dole the same question, he snapped, “Yeah, stop lying about my record.”

  Eight days after the disaster in Iowa, the momentum had swung back to George Bush.

  Fortunately, the bitterness of the 1988 primaries dissolved with time. Bob Dole and my father were both men of character, and they were able to set aside their differences and work together closely during Dad’s presidency. The two old warriors grew not only to respect each other but to like each other. Shortly after Dad lost the presidential election in 1992, he attended a dinner hosted by Senate Republicans, where Minority Leader Dole gave him a warm and tearful embrace. “No President was more committed to getting the job done,” Dole said. “Your place in history is secure…. George Bush helped change the world and that’s very important to all of us.” Bob Dole earned the Republican nomination for President in 1996, and Dad supported him strongly.

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  AFTER NEW HAMPSHIRE, the focus of the campaign shifted to South Carolina, the first primary below the Mason-Dixon Line and a bellwether for the delegate-rich South. As a native South Carolinian, Lee Atwater knew the political landscape and had assembled a powerful campaign apparatus. With its conservative electorate, South Carolina represented Pat Robertson’s best chance to secure a major win. But he didn’t have a strong organization, and Dad won handily with 49 percent of the vote.

  Seventeen states held their primaries on Super Tuesday, March 8, 1988. The campaign’s impressive fund-raising, organization, and strategy paid off with a sixteen-state sweep. For the first time in his political career, George Bush won a statewide race in Texas. By the time all the delegates were counted, George Bush was about two-thirds of the way to the nomination. Super Tuesday turned out to be not a firewall but the effective end of the campaign.

  As the presumptive nominee, Dad worked hard to unify the party. He met with Members of Congress, whether they supported him or not. He called Governors across the country and invited them to Walker’s Point. And in a gesture that was typical of George Bush, he and Mother hosted a dinner at the Naval Observatory for the candidates who had competed against him in the Republican primaries. Dad took the opportunity to mend any remaining wounds and enlist their support for November. He needed their help, because he was starting the general election in a deep hole.

  If the presidential election had been held in the summer of 1988, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts would have won in a landslide. Dukakis had not started the Democratic primaries as a household name. He was the somewhat uncharismatic Governor of a midsized liberal state. But he ran a solid campaign and bested his rivals for the Democratic nomination—Tennessee Senator Al Gore Jr., Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt, and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson—in a primary contest that featured repeated hammering of the Reagan-Bush administration.

  In mid-July, Dukakis and the Democrats took the stage at their convention in Atlanta. Two of the featured speakers would return to play a key role in our lives. The first was Ann Richards, the feisty Texas state Treasurer and future Governor, who made headlines with her quip that Dad had been “born with a silver foot in his mouth.” The other was Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who gave such a long speech that his biggest applause line was “In conclusion….”

  One dramatic moment in the convention was the introduction of Dukakis’s running mate, Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas. Bentsen was a respected legislator from an influential state with valuable Washington experience. And he had one other quality that Michael Dukakis was seeking: He knew how to beat George Bush. Bentsen had defeated Dad in the 1970 Senate race, and his selection by Dukakis the week before the convention was hailed as a political masterstroke. The “Boston to Austin” connection not only added a skillful campaigner to the ticket, it also echoed the JFK-LBJ presidential ticket that had delivered a victory for the Democrats over a sitting Vice President a generation earlier. The new running mates sprinted out of the convention with a big lead.

  Dad spent the week of the Democratic convention on a fishing trip in the Wyoming wilderness with Jim Baker. After serving as Chief of Staff to President Reagan in the first term, Baker had become Secretary of the Treasury in the second term. He left his post, one of the most powerful in the Cabinet, to lead Dad’s general election campaign.

  As someone who saw the campaign up close, I can attest to the difference that Jim Baker made. Over a long presidential campaign, there is a tendency for lines of authority to blur and decision making to get sloppy. That did not happen under Jim Baker. He brought structure and clarity to the campaign. He listened carefully to advice, but there was no doubt that he was in command. He never allowed the aides on the plane to exercise outsized influence with the candidate or undermine the decisions that had been made at the headquarters (a common phenomenon on less disciplined campaigns). His closeness with Dad gave him credibility both inside and outside the organization, and it gave my father peace of mind to know that the campaign was in the hands of his trusted friend.

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  AFTER A GRUELING summer for George Bush, the political world descended on New Orleans for the Republican National Convention in mid-August. For over a year, Dad had walked a delicate line between his roles as Vice President and presidential candidate. He had resisted pressure to break with or criticize President Reagan—a strategy that took discipline and restraint, especially as he fell further behind in the polls. He acted out of loyalty. He was wise enough to know that weakening the President would hurt his chances in the general election. Finally, Dad had a great sense of timing. The big stage of the convention served as an opportunity to emerge from the shadow of the President and define his
vision for the country.

  The convention in New Orleans felt like a family reunion. We all wanted to pitch in. When Dad’s name was formally placed into nomination, Jeb’s wife, Columba, seconded it—first in Spanish, and then in English. George P. Bush, Jeb and Columba’s son, led the Pledge of Allegiance. My siblings and I each announced the support of the delegations from our home states: Neil from Colorado, Jeb from Florida, Marvin from Virginia, and Doro from Maine. It fell to me to announce Texas’s support, which would officially put Dad over the top. I said that the Lone Star State proudly pledged its delegates “for a man we respect and a man we love…for her favorite son and the best father in America.”

  Dad opened his acceptance speech by explaining the new phase that had begun. “Many of you have asked, ‘When will this campaign really begin?’ I have come to this hall to tell you, and to tell America: Tonight is the night.” He continued, “For seven and a half years I have helped a President conduct the most difficult job on earth…. But now you must see me for what I am: the Republican candidate for President of the United States.”

  The crowd roared, and Dad kept them cheering for the next hour. A few days earlier, Dad had asked me to read a draft of the speech. The strong argument and crisp writing impressed me, but nothing prepared me for the impact of his delivery in the Superdome that night.

  “I am a man who sees life in terms of missions,” he said, “missions defined and missions completed. When I was a torpedo bomber pilot they defined the mission for us. Before we took off we all understood that no matter what, you try to reach the target. There have been other missions for me—Congress, China, the CIA. But I am here tonight—and I am your candidate—because the most important work of my life is to complete the mission we started in 1980.”

  He delivered a forceful takedown of Dukakis’s record, portraying him as a pessimist who saw America in a “long slow decline” and a “technocrat who makes sure the gears mesh but doesn’t for a second understand the magic of the machine.” He proceeded to lay out his vision for the country: A foreign policy based on the “knowledge that strength and clarity lead to peace,” not the “weakness and ambivalence [that] lead to war.” New support for charities and volunteers that would produce a “kinder, gentler nation” lit up by “a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.” And an economic policy designed to create jobs without increasing taxes, culminating in his pledge “Read my lips: no new taxes.”