George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

international gameboard, but as one who will appoint as his key advisors real experts in
the relevant fields -- unlike the inexperienced men with whom President Reagan has
surrounded himself. [...] It happens that we are in a state of national crisis, but, due to the
Soviets' success at dezinformatzia and to our peculiar susceptibilities, it isn't
recognizable. We see Bush as the candidate who, speaking with a voice of authority, can
make it recognizable." This statement is doubly interesting because it is a clear precursor
of the mood of bureaucratic triumphalism that marked the early weeks of the Bush
Administration, when the new team launched what was billed as a "policy review" on
Soviet relations to get back to hard bargaining after the departure of the slobbering
sentimentalist Reagan.
Bush and Atwater feared all their competition. They feared former Gov. Pierre DuPont of
Delaware because of his appeal to liberal and blueblood Republicans who might
otherwise automatically gravitate to Bush. They feared New York Congressman Jack
Kemp because of his appeal to the GOP right wing, to the blue-collar Reagan Democrats,
and his disturbing habit of talking about the Strategic Defense Initiative and many other
issues. They feared that Senator Bob Dole of Kansas with his "root canal economics,"
right-wing populism, and his solid backing from the international grain cartel might
appear more credible to the Wall Street bankers than Bush as an enforcer of austerity and
sacrifices. But at the same time, they knew that Bush had more money to spend and
incomparably more state by state organization than any of his GOP rivals, to say nothing
of the fabled Brown Brothers, Harriman media edge. Bush also ruled the Republican
National Committee with Stalin-like ferocity, denying these assets to all of his rivals.
This allowed Bush to wheel towards the right in 1986-87 to placate some of his critics
there, and then move back towards the center by the time of the primaries. Indeed, Bush's
many layers of money and political apparatchiki made it possible for him to absorb even
stunning defeats like the outcome of the Iowa caucuses without folding. Victory, thought
Bush, would belong to the big battalions.
But all the money and the organization could not mask the fact that Bush was
fundamentally a weak candidate. This began to become obvious to Atwater and his team
of perception mongers as the Iowa caucuses began to shape up. These were the caucuses
that Bush had so niftily won in 1980, imparting to him the fickle charisma of the Big Mo.
By 1988, Bush's Iowa effort had become complicated by reality, in the form of a farm
crisis that was driving thousands of farmers into bankruptcy every week. Farm voters
were now enraged against the avuncular thespian Ronald Reagan and were looking for a
way to send a message to the pointy-headed set in Washington DC. Governor Branstad of
Iowa complained as early as February, 1986: "I don't think his advisors are even keeping
[Bush] informed on the extent of the farm crisis. We've got a crisis in agriculture and no
one is in charge." Bush's Iowa campaign was dripping with lucre, but this now brought
forth resentment among the grim and grey-faced rural voters.
In mid-October, 1987, five of the six declared Republican candidates attended a
traditional Iowa GOP rally in Ames, just north of Des Moines, on the campus of Iowa
State University. Televangelist Pat Robertson surprised all the others by mobilizing 1,300
enthusiastic supporters for the Saturday event. The culmination of this rally was a