Austin, Texas
George W. Bush, the Republican governor of Texas, loves nicknames. Chief of staff Joe Albaugh, a large man with a flattop, is “Big Country.” His press secretary, Karen Hughes, is “The High Prophet,” a play on her maiden name, Parfitt, and her prominent role in a Presbyterian church in Austin. Younger brother Jeb is “Jebbie.” And the governor’s senior political adviser, Karl Rove, is “Turd Blossom.” You don’t want to know the reason for that one. So it wasn’t out of character one recent morning for Bush to shout, “MARTINI!,” across the private air terminal in Austin when he spotted Jack Martin. Bush chatted amiably with Martin for several minutes.
There was more to the encounter with Martin than bonhomie. Martin is a well-known Democrat and influential lobbyist. For years, he was Democratic senator Lloyd Bentsen’s top political hand in the state, the fellow every Democratic presidential candidate had to consult before going after Texas votes. Now, Martin is a warm friend and ally of Bush. “I just love the guy,” Martin says. Bush got in touch with Martin shortly after arriving in Austin in 1995 as the freshly elected governor, and the two hit it off. Since then, Bush has repeatedly called on Martin for advice and help. And their relationship, plus hundreds like it that Bush has fostered, are at the heart of his success in Texas. He plays politics at a high level of proficiency, more like ex-secretary of state James Baker than his own father, the former president. The result: He’s neutralized the liberal Austin establishment and the media, won over many Democrats, and made deep inroads into a large and once solidly Democratic constituency in Texas — Hispanics.
And success has spawned a new reputation. He’s no longer the punk son of the president, used by his dad for the dirty job of informing John Sununu he was fired as White House chief of staff in 1991. Now he’s a virtuoso politician, the legitimate front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, and the Republican most likely to defeat Vice President Al Gore. (Bush has a slight edge over Gore in recent polls.) That’s his reputation at least. Yet Bush has boycotted national TV talk shows, and he has neither created an organization nor campaigned (except for a dozen speeches, mostly on behalf of fellow GOP governors). True, Bush has special advantages. The Bush name helps, especially with Texans. And he’s riding the crest of a GOP wave in Texas that appears to be still growing. He benefits as well from prosperity that makes it easier for incumbents to govern and, in his case, maintain extraordinary popularity (70 percent approval). Amassing a $ 21 million war chest for his reelection campaign was a snap. “I’ve raised all my money,” Bush boasted to me. In fact, Bush and his parents found time to conduct a day of Texas fund-raisers for Jeb, who’s running for governor in Florida. They collected a quick $ 1 million.
Since he entered the race against Democratic governor Ann Richards in 1993, Bush has proved three things about himself: He can win, he can govern as a moderate conservative, and he can broaden the Republican base. He’s managed this without proposing a dazzling array of programs or, as conservatives would prefer, a dazzling array of program cuts. The centerpiece of his governorship in 1997 and 1998 was a complicated tax package that not only failed ignominiously in the legislature but was fervently opposed by then-state Republican chairman Tom Pauken and the small-business community. (Luckily for Bush, he got a $ 1 billion cut in property taxes as consolation.) The key to his success is a blunt but appealing personality, a will to be liked, and breathtaking skill at playing both sides of the political game, running for office and governing.
Bush is a disciplined campaigner. Because he’d run only once before, narrowly losing a 1978 race for a House seat from west Texas, the Richards camp anticipated gaffes. None came. His closest call occurred when he shot a deer out of season. “It’s a good thing it wasn’t deer season or I might have shot a cow,” Bush joked, and the matter died. Reporters doggedly tried to get him off his four designated campaign themes (education, welfare, crime, and litigation reform). They failed. Bush teased the press by announcing a fifth theme — pay attention to the other four. He refused to attack Richards personally, and when she zinged his record as a businessman in a TV commercial, he deftly used that against her in a counter-ad. Richards, ever popular and favored to win, outspent him ($ 17 million to $ 14 million) and gave cleverer speeches. He won 54 percent to 46 percent.
What followed was even more impressive. He pushed his program through the still-Democratic legislature, notably tort reform and expansion of local control of schools. And he began wooing Democrats. He made the most of his weekly meetings with lieutenant governor Bob Bullock, the most powerful Democrat in Texas. On his second day in office, Bush irritated Bullock by blabbing to reporters about an issue they were supposed to discuss privately. Bush apologized. “Lesson learned,” he told Bullock. Bush made sure nothing leaked to the press from their private sessions. Bullock was snowed. “Bush has him eating out of his hands,” says a Democrat. Last November, after announcing he wouldn’t run again, Bullock endorsed Bush for reelection — and for any higher office Bush might seek. He did so despite being godfather to Garry Mauro’s child. Mauro is Bush’s Democratic opponent for governor. Other Democrats took Bullock’s cue. El Paso mayor Carlos Ramirez backed Bush, as did ex-Houston mayor Bob Lanier and 105 Democratic officeholders.
Bush also grabbed a media consultant, Mark McKinnon, from Democratic ranks. McKinnon produced the TV spots for Ann Richards in 1990 when she defeated Republican Clayton Williams. Later, he soured on electoral politics and joined Jack Martin’s lobbying firm, Public Strategies. There, he got to know two former aides to President Bush, Fred McClure and David Bates, and was introduced to George W., the governor. “I was disarmed completely,” he says. “As I and many other Texans will testify, he has a message and approach and generational appeal that is causing a lot of Democrats to add the adjective ‘former'” to their party affiliation.
And not just in cities. When I spent a day with Bush in late August as he traveled to small towns near the Gulf coast, I was struck by how many Democratic officials embraced him enthusiastically. In Beeville, Mayor Kenneth Chesshir said, “I’m for him 100 percent.” In Sinton, home of the “World Championship Rattlesnake Races,” Sheriff Leroy Moody said, “I’m a Democrat, but I don’t have any problem saying I’m for him.” Democrats clamored to have their picture taken with Bush.
Bush’s greatest achievement, potentially, is turning Hispanics into Republicans. Heaven knows, he’s trying. He speaks workable Spanish, attends Hispanic events, and is often photographed with Hispanic kids. All that helps, but only a little. What has worked is Bush’s willingness to veer sharply from the Republican line. He’s pro-Mexico and pro-immigrant, insisting a prosperous Mexico is critical to American stability. He’s against stationing troops on the border to impede drug smugglers. “Policies that tend to wall Mexico off, I oppose,” he says. “Mexico is not our enemy.” He’s against punishing children of illegal aliens, as Proposition 187 requires in California. “I feel we ought to educate immigrant children,” he says. English-only appeals infuriate him. “It says to Hispanic people, ‘Me, not you. Your heritage doesn’t matter.'” And he’s willing to tolerate bilingual education, so long as English is taught. In 1994, he got 24 percent of the Hispanic vote. His goal in 1998 is 40 percent. That would represent a major political break through.
For all Bush’s political prowess, there are three big questions about his ability to run a successful national campaign. Not that he’s announced one. For now, he’s stumping all-out for reelection and, as of Labor Day, won’t appear outside Texas. His mantra this fall is that there are only two ways to run, 100 percent or unopposed. If the chance he’ll run for president later is bothersome, he says, Texans should factor that in when they vote for governor on November 3. Oh, yes, the three questions: Is George W. different from his father? Does he have a message? Will his political style, a hit in Austin, transfer to the national stage?
Temperamentally, he’s not his father’s son. If the ex-president is every woman’s first husband, Paul Burka of Texas Monthly wrote, “then George W. is the wild boyfriend every woman dated in her youth.” He’s looser, louder, more casual than his father. Bush once high-fived a reporter who showed up to interview him. He went to Andover, Yale, and Harvard Business School, but says his upbringing did more to shape him. “I was raised in Midland, Texas. [My father] was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. I’m a westerner.” His view of his role in government is different, too. Bush Sr. regarded public service as a civic duty. George W. views it as a way to accomplish things.
He plays populist to his father’s patrician. After his standard speech, about 15 minutes long, George W. loves to wade into crowds, chat, trade quips, have his picture taken, sign autographs — as Clinton does, actually. He’s a toucher, a patter, a slapper, a hugger. By the end of his first stop at a Gulf coast town on August 27, sweat had seeped through the back of his suit coat. Bush appeared not to mind. In Aransas, he worked his way through a crowd of roughly 400 in a way that almost seemed organized (but wasn’t). Somehow, he got several groups of a dozen or more young people to cluster together. Then he slipped in the middle and a picture was taken. “Why aren’t you doing your homework?,” he cracked to one teenage boy. “This is my homework,” the young man said.
What really matters, though, is whether Bush is more conservative than his father. Bush and his aides insist he is. “People will find I’m probably more conservative than he is,” Bush says. “Labels are labels and results are results.” But when I asked Bush to be more specific, he declined. Though he says Ronald Reagan is his political role model, George W., like his dad, is not an ideological person. He’s conservative by instinct. On taxes and limiting government, he sounds semi-Reaganesque. The Cato Institute, in its rating of governors, called him “admirably tightfisted” for holding annual increases in state spending to 2 percent. Last week, he kicked off his reelection campaign by proposing to reduce taxes by $ 2.5 billion. And should he run for president, aides claim Richard Darman, loathed by conservatives, won’t be on the Bush team. George W. thinks Darman, as budget chief, had a ruinous impact on the Bush presidency. At one point, he asked his father to fire Darman and treasury secretary Nick Brady, according to aides. I asked the governor to confirm this. He wouldn’t, but he didn’t deny it either. Another sign of Bush’s conservatism is his refusal last year to help William Weld win confirmation as ambassador to Mexico. Weld pleaded with Bush to intervene with Sen. Jesse Helms, who was blocking the nomination. Bush never considered it. He couldn’t figure out why Weld would give up a good job as governor of Massachusetts to serve in the Clinton administration.
Question two: the message. I think Bush has one. It’s just not an exciting message. His stump speech stresses limited government, the state’s role in education, and the need for a broad cultural shift in America back to traditional values. The Texas legislature meets only 140 days every two years, he notes. “Our motto is, If government doesn’t meet, it can’t hurt you,” he adds. But there’s “a legitimate role” for state governments in education. “Education is to the state what national defense is to the national government.” He wants the legislature to ban “social promotions” next year: If kids fail a state-run test certifying the ability to read by the third grade, they won’t be moved up to the fourth grade just to keep them with their age group. One adviser suggested teachers be allowed to waive the requirement for students who failed but warranted promotion anyway. Bush said no.
The provocative part of Bush’s spiel is his cultural conservatism. He’s not a conventional social conservative. He doesn’t mention abortion, homosexuality, or school prayer. But all of his speeches feature a conservative rap on the culture. “I’ve seen the culture change once in my lifetime,” says Bush, who is 52. And the “ravages” of that shift toward permissiveness and hedonism are everywhere. Government can’t prompt a new swing back to old values, but leaders can help. So Bush talks up “right choices” for teenagers: stay in school, no drugs or alcohol, no sex before marriage. There’s “honor, not shame,” in sexual abstinence, he says. Young men who father children and walk away don’t meet “the definition of manliness.”
Bush was taken with David Horowitz’s brutal critique of the ’60s, Destructive Generation, and invited Horowitz to Austin for a talk last November. Then, in May, Bush went to Hollywood and addressed 300 entertainment industry leaders before Horowitz’s Wednesday Morning Club. As Bush spoke, “I said this is too conservative for a Hollywood crowd,” Horowitz recalls. “He went on about abstinence.” Yet there was no palpable backlash in the audience. Columnist Richard Reeves wrote a favorable review of the speech. Says Horowitz: “This shows how good [Bush] is at presenting difficult themes. I’ve never seen a working Republican politician as good as this. He’s comfortable in his own skin. He’s comfortable with the issues.”
Cultural conservatism alone won’t carry Bush through a national campaign. (He’s expected to announce for president next spring.) Without sharper issues, he may come off as Howard Baker reincarnated. Baker was Senate GOP leader when he sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1980. Mildly conservative, he relied on his prior political success, his prestige in Washington, and his many power relationships inside the Beltway. But influence in Washington and the notion that Baker could defeat any Democrat didn’t fly with Republican primary voters. He flopped.
Likewise, Bush’s political success is based heavily on his productive ties in Austin. In calm times, his reputation as a winner in Texas might be enough. But should the economy tank and instability around the world increase, voters might respond to a bolder candidate, as they did to Reagan in 1980.
For now, Bush shies away from specific national issues. He doesn’t want Texas voters to conclude he’s using reelection as governor as a stepping stone. I asked Bush if he sees himself as a “national greatness” conservative who favors bold government projects, as proclaimed by Peter Beinart in the New Republic. He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. I asked about his policy toward China. All he’d say is the Clinton administration has wrongly “jettisoned Taiwan.” I asked if he thinks Roe v. Wade should be overturned. He dodged the question, saying he’s a committed pro-lifer but that the country won’t be ready to ban abortions until the culture changes. And so on. Still, there are national issues he’s prepared to tout when the time comes: Sweeping Social Security reform. More money for the military, particularly for missile defense. An overall lowering of the tax burden.
But the time isn’t yet. Besides, “not showing much leg is useful to us,” a Bush adviser says. He’s become the GOP front-runner while not running. His only appearance at a presidential cattle show, in Indianapolis a year ago, was panned by the press. He doesn’t relish spending time with the other candidates. He was miffed when Steve Forbes endorsed Tom Pauken, his least favorite Texas Republican, for state attorney general — and didn’t check first with the man at the head of the ticket, him. (Pauken lost.) He likes Dan Quayle, but regards him as tarnished, and he believes Lamar Alexander’s time has passed. He thinks Gary Bauer is a twerp, but respects John Ashcroft. Staying above the fray makes Bush look larger than any of these guys. Maybe that’s because he is.
