IT WAS THE DEFINING public policy dispute of the 1990s, and Andrew Card, president of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, wanted to make sure his voice was heard. President Clinton had offered up his health care reform in late 1993, and by spring of the following year it was in trouble, mostly because some congressional Republicans, along with a few nonpartisan experts, thought it would effectively nationalize one of the country’s biggest industries, amounting to 14 percent of the national economy. As the Washington representative of Detroit’s three car makers, Card decided to weigh in — on behalf of the president’s plan.
Appearing in press conferences with Ted Kennedy, Dan Rostenkowski, and other reformers, Card made an emphatic case for HillaryCare (as critics called it). He was particularly concerned that Congress pass what came to be known as the “employer mandate,” requiring every employer of a certain size to buy health insurance for their employees.
“Throughout this national debate on health reform,” Card said, “the focus of attention has been on the burden, or increased costs, that would be incurred by businesses that do not provide insurance coverage to their employees. Often overlooked is the burden incurred by those employers who [already] do provide insurance coverage, and pick up the tab for those who do not.”
Card was particularly tough on Republicans who refused to go along with the president’s plan. They were motivated by “political opportunism,” he said, and a desire to embarrass the president.
Reporters covering the health care debate were duly impressed. “One of the best spokesmen for the employer mandate these days is Andrew Card,” said a correspondent on National Public Radio. “He’s really carrying the president’s water these days.”
On the face of it, Card would have seemed an unlikely Clintonian. From 1989 to 1991 he served as deputy chief of staff to President Bush. In 1992 Bush named him secretary of transportation. But times change, and the Bush loyalist became a loyal lobbyist for car manufacturers who were particularly enamored of one aspect of Clinton’s reform. In a provision carefully designed for the automotive industry and other heavy manufacturers, the plan would have transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in their annual health care costs to the federal government. Among businesses, car makers were one of HillaryCare’s few winners.
Now times have changed again, and Card has been chosen by George W. Bush to serve as his White House chief of staff. The appointment and the man himself have been universally praised. “You’re not going to find anyone who doesn’t think he’s a good guy,” says Rob Portman, a Republican congressman who worked with Card in the Bush White House. And a quick canvass of Washington types — both Democrats and Republicans, veterans of the health care wars and survivors of the first Bush administration — bears this out. Which is to be expected, of course, when you ask political people to comment on a man who is about to control access to many hundreds of political jobs. But in Card’s case the affection seems not only universal but genuine.
“He was an extraordinarily calming influence in that White House,” says Constance Horner, who worked as director of the Office of Personnel Management under President Bush. “He always conveyed a sense of bearing no one any ill will whatsoever, which was not a common trait in that environment. He was someone people would go to for help, because he worked in good faith and trusted the good faith of others.”
Card’s management style was in stark contrast to that of his immediate boss in the Bush White House, John Sununu. It is interesting to note that the senior Bush, upon winning the presidency, chose as his closest aide a highly ideological politician (Sununu was a former governor of New Hampshire) with an Adam Clymer-like reputation, while the younger Bush chooses the quintessential staff man: genial, conciliatory, and happy to adopt the ideological coloration of whoever his employer happens to be. The difference probably reflects differences between father and son, but also differences between the Republican party circa 1988 and circa 2000. Bush senior needed to staff his White House with visible conservatives as a reassurance to the party’s powerful right wing. Nowadays, the right wing isn’t really worth the bother.
Notwithstanding the contrasts in temperament and politics, Sununu and Card share a fierce and impregnable sense of loyalty, the virtue that Bushes most dearly prize. Andy Card has been a Bush man for more than twenty years. He’s an engineer by training, with all the gifts for orderliness and competence that this implies, but he was early on drawn to politics, and ran first for public office at the age of 25. As a young Massachusetts state legislator — one in a tiny minority of Republicans — he was sought out by George the elder in the late 1970s as Bush prepared his first campaign for president. In his aging Chevette, cluttered with maps and leaflets and campaign posters, Card ferried the candidate to speeches and potluck suppers across the commonwealth, and as campaign chairman he helped engineer Bush’s close-cut victory over Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Massachusetts primary. Card himself ran a long-shot race for governor in the 1982 primary, finishing third in a field of three. With Bush’s help he secured a staff job in the Reagan White House and moved to Washington. He has been a favorite Bush go-to guy ever since, handling a series of tricky tasks with tact and skill.
After three years as deputy chief of staff, Card was elevated to the cabinet as secretary of transportation — a career leap almost unheard of in the hapless world of Washington’s professional staff folk, and a signal that loyalty to Bushes would be loyalty repaid. In the summer of 1992, when the administration’s sluggish response to Hurricane Andrew threatened the president’s already iffy reelection, Bush dispatched Card to the scene in southern Florida, and within 48 hours the critics were purring the secretary’s praises. The deposed president then assigned Card the painful task of helping the incoming Clintonites with their transition. And earlier this year, facing resistance among mossbacks at the Republican National Committee to its plans for a deliriously “inclusive” convention, the Bush campaign placed Card in charge of planning the event. The result was the most successful Republican convention in a dozen years.
The closest thing to a criticism of Andy Card you might hear these days is the rather mild suggestion that he may be too nice for his new job. Rob Portman, for one, expresses no such reservations. “I’ve seen him be very tough when he has to be, delivering some very unpleasant messages to members of the staff,” Portman says.
Andrew Natsios, a friend of Card’s from their days in the Massachusetts legislature, agrees. “He’s a Christian gentleman — that’s an old-fashioned phrase but it fits,” says Natsios. “He won’t yell at you. He won’t raise his voice. But he will fire you if he has to. That’s the job.”
Among recent chiefs of staff, Erskine Bowles most closely resembles the type that Andrew Card promises to be. Polite and mild mannered, he will head an administration that is pragmatic, unadventurous, averse to risk — a triumph of competence over ideology. This is the government George W. Bush pledged to deliver, and Card will reflect perfectly the views of the man he serves. And so long as the new president doesn’t try to nationalize the health care system, everyone should be happy.
Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
