One Bush to another: Your turn

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff, June 14, 1999

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine -- For months, George W. Bush has fretted over the legacy of his father, the former president. While the younger Bush made his fortune and was elected governor of Texas partly on his father's name, he worried that his chances of becoming president would be hurt by the mixed memories of his father's presidency.

Yesterday, on the eve of Governor Bush's visit to New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary, father and son seemed to strike a deal. Former president Bush vowed to stay out of his son's campaign and said, "I don't care about the issues." Governor Bush responded by saying that he didn't care about losing because he had his father's love.

To make sure no one missed the message, the two George Bushes discussed the matter in one of the most unusual press conferences in their family's history before a throng of 300 journalists at the family compound, at the edge of a flower-scented promontory.

"I was unpopular. I was," the former president said with uncommon bluntness, when asked why his low standing in 1992 has been followed by his son's rapid rise. "Maybe I'm a little egotistical, but surveys I've seen have been rather pleasant about me. . . . Let him find his own way. He doesn't need a voice from the past."

In fact, both Bushes have a common ground that helps explain the son's ambition: Both were shaped by the father's 1992 election defeat. While receiving little coverage at the time, George W. Bush played a key role in the campaign, serving as a go-between with campaign officials and his father and often offering strategic advice.

"I was sky high after Desert Storm, only to sink . . . pretty darn low," the former president said. "He was with me in the ups and downs."

George W. Bush's friends say he is still stung by his father's defeat.

"It is the first-son syndrome," said Mary Matalin, the political director of President Bush's 1992 campaign, who often worked in coordination with George W. Bush. "George W. always was his father's most trusted, first-among-equals son. He was the one we all went to."

Yesterday, George W., who last November was elected to a second term as governor, said his father's loss had "liberated" him.

"I have half his friends and all his enemies," the governor said. "If things don't work out, I'll still have a father and a mother and a wife that love me."

Then, referring to the family estate on Walker's Point, where Texas and US flags snapped in the ocean breeze, he said: "This is an appropriate place to talk about this because this is the place we find love and comfort."

Throughout his White House years, former President Bush had come to this sprawling, shingled home by the sea to seek a month-long respite from the turmoil of Washington. He would race in his cigarette boat, power-walk on Goose Rocks Beach and play endless rounds of golf. He usually kept the press at bay, meeting perhaps a few times each season with a small group of reporters. By the time he ran for reelection, one of his slogans was "Annoy the media -- Reelect Bush."

But yesterday, with many of the news media who had covered his presidency now focused on his son, the mood was giddy.

"Where were you in '92?" Barbara Bush asked by way of greeting. The "photo opportunity" of the two Bush couples turned into a 30-minute question and answer session that focused almost entirely on why the elder Bush had been unpopular and his son is not. Throughout it all, the former president seemed reflective and tranquil. When he tripped on his syntax, just as in the old days, he exclaimed, "I'm the same guy!"

All around this quintessential Yankee tourist haven, the Bushes are not just back in town; they also seem to be back in power, even though George W. Bush has a long way to go before winning the Republican nomination.

"The father was never comfortable in this role," said one top adviser who has worked for both Bushes and who asked not to be identified. "George W. clearly is. His father would make joking references to the 'vision thing,' like saying, 'Is this the place where I have to insert this vision part into the speech?' "

The adviser said, "I can't tell whether [former President Bush] is more delighted that his son is running for president or that he doesn't have to be in the middle of it and take all the hurly-burly."

The Texas governor came here to celebrate his father's 75th birthday Saturday. But the timing of the visit attracted far more attention, tucked between campaign visits to Iowa and New Hampshire.

The most striking thing about the two George Bushes is how differently they prepared for the presidency. Both men started out in similar ways. George H. W. Bush gained notoriety because he was the son of the former senator from Connecticut, Prescott Bush. Both went to Phillips Academy, the elite prep school in Andover, Mass., and Yale University. Both men went to West Texas hoping to strike it rich in the oil industry.

But here the similarities end. The senior Bush spent much of his life preparing to be president, as a congressman, ambassador to China, Republican Party chairman, and vice president. The junior Bush, who never thought much about politics during his youth, lost a race for Congress, got rich partly as a result of deals with his father's friends, and became governor partly because of his father's fame.

In 1992, then-President Bush spent much of the fall campaign ridiculing the idea that a governor with no foreign policy experience could aspire to the White House. Bush, asked yesterday whether his son has properly prepared to be president, said that "everybody has his own experience. I had no comparable executive experience . . . running the state of Texas as governor."

The elder Bush, who always touted his past when running for president, made fun of such a strategy yesterday. "I was called the 'resume president,' but I never felt people were saying that with awe and respect," he said.

Still, there are many ways in which Governor Bush is emulating his father. Former president Bush's call for a "thousand points of light" has turned into Governor Bush's proposal for "armies of compassion." The former president's push for a "kinder, gentler" America has morphed into the governor's declaration that he is a "compassionate conservative."

But the younger Bush is trying to avoid some of the problems encountered by his father, who was goaded into running to the political right in the '92 race in an effort to beat Patrick Buchanan and other conservatives in the primaries, and then was unable to reposition himself in the political middle for the general election against Bill Clinton.

Yet to the surprise of some aides, Governor Bush last week appeared to set himself up to repeat one of his father's most famous mistakes by declaring that he would oppose any tax increase if elected president, echoing former President Bush's famously broken vow, "Read my lips, no new taxes."

Given how the former president vividly recalls that he was unpopular when he left the White House, he said that he doubted he would appear at many more events with his son. But if all else fails, he said he had a backup plan: "Unleash Barbara."