George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

When Bush had arrived in Manchester the night of the disastrous Iowa result, Sununu had
promised a nine point victory for Bush in his state. Oddly enough, that turned out to be
exactly right. The final result was 38% for Bush, 29% for Dole, 13% for Kemp, 10% for
DuPont, and 9% for Robertson. Was Sununu a clairvoyant? Perhaps he was, but those
familiar with the inner workings of the New Hampshire quadrennials are aware of a very
formidable ballot-box stuffing potential assembled there by the blueblood political
establishment. Some observers pointed to pervasive vote fraud in the 1988 New
Hampshire primaries, and Pat Robertson, as we shall see, also raised this possibility. The
Sununu machine delivered exactly as promised, securing the governor the post of White
House chief of staff. Sununu soon became so self-importantly inebriated with the
trappings of the imperial presidency as reflected in his travel habits that it was suggested
that the state motto appearing on New Hampshire license plates be changed from "Live
Free or Die" to "Fly Free or Die." In any case, for Bush the heartfelt "Thank You, New
Hampshire" he intoned after his surprising victory signalled that his machine had
weathered its worst crisis.
Bush's real thank you to New Hampshire would come gradually, in the form of an
accelerated economic depression. Soon after the 1988 vote, the bottom fell out of the
state's real estate boom, banks began failing, and the unemployment rate spiked upward.
During 1991, food stamp usage there went up 51%.-an object lesson of what happens to
those who fail to resist George Bush.
In the South Carolina primary, the Bushmen were concerned about a possible threat from
television evangelist Pat Robertson, who had mounted his major effort in the Palmetto
state. Robertson was widely known through his appearances on his Christian
Broadcasting Network. Shortly before the South Carolina vote, a scandal became public
which involved another television evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, a close friend of
Robertson and an active supporter of Robertson's presidential campaign. Swaggart
admitted to consorting with a prostitute, and this caused a severe crisis in his ministry.
Jim Baker of the PTL television ministry had already been tainted by a sex scandal.
Robertson accused the Bush campaign of orchestrating the Swaggart revelations at a time
that would be especially advantageous to their man. Talking to reporters, Robertson
pointed to "the evidence that two weeks before the primary...it suddenly comes to light."
Robertson added that the Bush campaign was prone to "sleazy" tricks, and suggested that
his own last-place finish in New Hampshire was "quite possibly" the result of "dirty
tricks" by the Bush campaign. Bush responded by dismissing Robertson's charges as
"crazy" and "absurd." Robertson had been linking Bush to the "international banking
community" in his South Carolina campaigning. [fn 33]
True to his Southern Strategy, Atwater had "front-loaded" Bush's effort in the southern
states with money, political operatives, and television, straining the legal limit of what
could be spent during the primary season as whole. A few days before Super Tuesday
came the South Carolina primary. Here Bush appeared before a group of two dozen
evangelical fundamentalist ministers and declared with a straight face: "Jesus Christ is
my personal savior." The state's governor, Carol Campbell, was a former customer of Lee
Atwater's. Strom Thurmond was for Dole, but his endorsement proved to be valueless.