Primaria de New Hampshire, 1988: "Bush no subirá los impuestos, ¡y punto!"

(CON MOTIVO DE LA PROXIMIDAD DE LA PRIMARIA DE NEW HAMPSHIRE, RECUPERO ESTA ENTRADA PUBLICADA EL 5 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2018)

Seguidores de George Bush y de Bob Dole agitan sus pancartas en una carretera de New Hampshire en febrero de 1988. (National Museum of American History)


Febrero de 1988. George H.W. Bush lucha en New Hampshire para sortear un golpe fatal a sus ambiciones presidenciales después de haber cosechado un funesto tercer puesto en el caucus de Iowa. Bush no solo ha quedado tercero en Iowa, sino que Bob Dole, el líder de los republicanos en el Senado, le ha doblado en número de votos. El Vicepresidente de EEUU no ha ganado ni un solo condado en Iowa. What It Takes (Lo que hace falta), el divertidísimo libro de más de mil páginas de Richard Ben Cramer sobre las elecciones de 1988, nos cuenta cómo Bush logrará mantener viva su candidatura presidencial en New Hampshire en una de las semanas más difíciles y decisivas de su carrera política:


Overnight polls in New Hampshire showed Dole cutting Bush’s lead to eight or nine points—before the news from Iowa. God only knew what the swing would be after that humiliation. The problem was, voters couldn’t see any political difference between Bush and Dole. And Dole was trouncing them with his man-of-the-people work boots. Half the Bush vote came from people who just thought Bush was going to win. Well, Iowa would take care of that—Dole looked plenty big-league now. ... Somehow, they had to show those voters that Bush and Dole were not the same—they’d make different leaders. “We gotta show, they’re different guys!” But that meant showing who George Bush was, and they hadn’t been able to pull that off for two years. How could they start now?

Roger Ailes looked even worse than usual—he had pneumonia. He was fevered, full of antibiotics. But he said he could tape an “Ask George Bush”—a half-hour, statewide TV ... fill the audience with Bushies who’d lob softball questions and let the man stand up and talk. That’s what Ailes did for Nixon in ’68, when they had to show the New Nixon! ... Goddammit, it was time to show George Bush! ... Not Bush’s plane, Bush’s cars, Bush’s staff—that’s all people ever saw! ... “We gotta get rid of this VP shit!”

“Goddam, Ah’m with ya!” Lee said.

This was another thing Atwater said he always knew ... all that motorcade shit’s jussa pain inna ass! ... He tol’ ’em, said Lee, back in, uh, September: We gotta git close to the GROUN’ in this thing. ... Tol’ that asshole Fuller that Sununu was complainin’ ’bout the motorcades, uh, blockin’ the traffic, an’, uh, pissin’ people off!

That’s what Lee always said, always. People couldn’t feel the man! Didn’t know him! ... That’s why they were losing!

Then George Bush came back to the hotel, called a meeting. He didn’t want to hear more talk about losing. He didn’t want to hear about Iowa, what happened, or who did it. That was over—gone. “There’s no sense looking back. It’s nobody’s fault. We either go on, win in New Hampshire—or I go back to Kennebunk, and go fishing.”

Captain Bush, the one-minute manager.

Of course, that didn’t amount to a plan.

But Governor Sununu was with Bush ... he said they didn’t need a plan—not a new one: they were going to win.

That’s how Sununu was. First thing he wanted to show you: he was in control. Second thing: he was smarter than you.

Of course, it was Sununu’s organization they were doubting—what Sununu called the best organization in the history of New Hampshire. And it was Sununu’s plan: for the last year in New Hampshire, George Bush had gone where Sununu took him ... what Sununu called his “see-me-touch-me-feel-me” campaign. The Governor was proudest of last New Year’s Eve in Concord, where people come out, with their children in tow, to stroll Main Street ... before they go get loaded at their parties. Sununu’s boys took over a clothing store and set George and Barbara Bush in there with borrowed furniture—instant living room. They had three thousand people lined up in the cold, waiting for hot chocolate and a handshake with the Veep.

Sununu was sure: that would not be forgotten. Nor would that big picnic at Congressman Judd Gregg’s, the Fourth of July parade in Bristol, the community fair on the green in New London. ... “You’ve invested a lot of time and effort,” Sununu said. “The only thing we’ve got to do is show George Bush is the same guy they met and wanted to support before. Just get him out on the street!”

Okay, the street ... when?

Now—today! Every day!

The bible called for Bush to leave for Washington—lunch with Reagan. Then a day in New Orleans at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference ...

Scrap it.

Scrap the bible?

They had to have their lunch with Reagan. (Maybe get TV in there!) ... Reagan’s approval stood at eighty percent with New Hampshire Republicans. This wasn’t Iowa—they loved the Gipper!

So, okay, lunch—get him down there, picture with Reagan—then back for see-me-touch-me ...

And “Ask George Bush” ...

Yeah ... Ask Bush.

And we gotta hit Dole.

We gotta show they’re not the same.

The Straddle Ad!

That was an Ailes script—an attack on Dole that said the Bobster always tried to fudge where he stood. The ad suggested Dole was going to raise taxes ... no matter what he said.

Bush didn’t want the ad—too tough. He’d rejected the script: no Straddle Ad.

You got to say something about the sonofabitch!

He can’t pull off that “I’m One of You” stuff in New Hampshire.

But you gotta say something ...

That was the problem—Bush had to say something—about Dole, about himself, about the country ... something! People had to hear, had to feel, that Bush believed he was the man for this job, that he wanted it enough to come out of the bubble.

Let’s get out there!

Where?

Everywhere. Anyplace there’s more than five people.

And no motorcade bullshit!

Just stop.

Service isn’t gonna like it.

Fuck the Service!

So that was the new plan. After seven years of careful building, after twenty million dollars spent, after all the briefings, coaching, debate books, the cautious positioning, luxuriant staffing, the hundreds of speeches, the thousands of events, hundreds of thousands of miles, after seven years of detail ... it came down to one state, where Bush would hit the streets, and do ... everything—at once.

So he did. He went out and hit the high school in Hopkinton, an insurance office in Keene ... and in the middle, he stopped ... at a mall, then a grocery store, where he saw people across the street, behind a rope ... he ran to shake their hands.

And he said ... well—Dole was in the state with a tough speech on the Soviets, so Bush had to show he was tough on Soviets—he was supposed to talk about himself, after all ...

“I don’t know whether your history teaches you,” said Bush to the high school students at Hopkinton, “back into the early days of the Korean War and that kind of thing ... but there was an old tough guy named Yakov Malik at the United Nations ... and I was the UN Ambassador then—uh, I started dealing with the Soviets about then, 1971, 1972 ...”

Somehow, the story about Yakov Malik never did come out.

Dole was promising to solve the deficit with a freeze of federal spending—so Bush said he could freeze federal spending: “A flexible freeze ... that would give uh, flexibility, but would keep that overall level, so ...”

But that wasn’t about him, at all.

He tried to sum up why he was the man New Hampshire voters would turn to ...

“I’m one of you.”

What?

“The reason is ...” Bush said, “because I am. I was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Connecticut, live across the way—uh, have a house across the way—in Maine ... and I understand New Hampshire.”

Three Greyhound busloads of press could not believe it: the poor desperate bastard was lifting Dole’s slogan! Wimp-o-rama! ... Bush did not get it—thought it was about geography!

They were yelling at him from risers and ropelines:

WHADDABOUT TEXAS?

“I’m one of them, too.”

Y’BORN IN MASSACHUSETTS!

Bush shrugged. “Can’t vote in Massachusetts. Born there. I’m one of them, too.”

This was a game Bush could not win. He tried to explain:

“It was s’posed to be funny. ... Maybe nobody got it.”

Next stop, it was worse:

WHYD’YA SAY YOU’RE FROM TEXAS?

“Look,” Bush said. “I’ll drop the slogan.”

Testy, testy!

Well, goddam right! “They nitpick every word I say!” ... While he was out there, trying so hard to keep a life’s work from sliding down the tubes ... trying to spread himself everywhere around that state till he almost pulled himself apart ... trying to show he was coming back ... trying to show the fighter he was ... but loyal ... but determined ... but friendly ... trying, in one week, to be for them everything he thought they wanted—to do everything!

Almost everything ...

No. Everything.

While Bush was trying to be one of them, Ailes was on the phone to his wife, in New York. Ailes’s fever was a hundred and two. He had a towel over his head to trap the steam from a vaporizer. He was gray. His voice was a nasty croak. But he’d have to be dead—at least unconscious—before he’d stop trying to hit Dole.

“You go in, tonight,” he said. “Make the Straddle Ad.”

Norma Ailes was a TV producer.

“Do we have authorization?”

“They don’t air it, I’ll eat it. We’re gonna need it.” He dictated the ad: “Dole straddled on the INF ... straddled on the oil import fee. Bush led the fight for INF. He’s against an oil import fee. ... Then we say, ‘Bush won’t raise taxes, period.’ Put the period on there. ‘Dole won’t promise—you know what that means.’ ...”

Norma Ailes wanted to know: “What do we use for visuals?”

“Use what you find.”

It didn’t have to be pretty.

“Just go make it.”

The tape arrived by messenger, Wednesday, before noon.

Wednesday, before noon, Peggy Noonan was in her car, on the way home to her house in the woods of Virginia. Peggy had left the daily grind at the White House. She meant to stay home, write her book, raise her little boy. That’s why she was hustling now—home to her son. She’d left her mother with the boy.

She had the radio on—news from New Hampshire ... and she heard Bush’s voice, tinny in the speakers:

“I’m one of you ...”

Oh, God, that was awful! The poor man had nothing to say!

She liked Bush. She didn’t know him well, but he’d asked her to do a couple of speeches ... the first time, he only had an hour or two before the Steedham thing. Steedham was the sailor whom the TWA hijackers killed and threw off the plane, onto the tarmac in Beirut. His body was coming home, to an Air Force base—just after 6:00 P.M.—it would be live on every news show in the country. Bush was going to represent the White House. He worried for Steedham’s parents: they’d have to stand there, watching their son’s body come off the plane, with the newsies poking telephotos at their faces. He had to say something of comfort ... so he called Peggy.

That was her reputation in the White House. She was the designated “sensitive”—ever since she did that speech for Reagan after the Challenger blew up. As for Bush’s reputation ... well, Noonan couldn’t understand why he was so much demeaned, why the Reaganauts didn’t trust him. He was a Goldwater man! ... And such a sweetie: so interested in her ... charming—handsome! She was struck by his maleness, the way he threw his legs out from the edge of his chair—big legs—an athlete. ... Why did people think he was a wimp?

“I’m one of you ...”

God, he sounded like a wimp!

She got home and asked her mother, in the kitchen: “Mom, could you take care of the baby for a week if I’m away?”

Then she called Fuller’s office.

Fuller was “in a meeting.”

“Well, tell Craig if he wants me, I’ll be there.”

An hour later, word came back: Fuller’s assistant, Diane Terpeluk, said that Craig said ... 2:00 P.M.

“Really? What are we doing?”

“They’re all getting on Air Force Two, going to New Hampshire.”

She saw Bush on the plane for a moment, when she walked into the Staff Cabin. “Oh,” he said, “come to pick us up off the mat, huh?”

That was the calmest thing anybody said. The purposeful quiet of Air Force Two was gone. Atwater couldn’t even say hello. He was scratching his head, like he did when he was nervous. “Ah kin see this slippin’ away! Ah got bones for this! Ah got skin that kin feel everything ...” Teeter was edgy, earnest. He wanted a sit-down right away. “Look, we gotta show who this guy is—they’re not the same, Dole and him. Different lives. Be totally different leaders.”

Peggy set to work on a new stump speech.

That night, she sat down at dinner in the Clarion with Teeter and the VP. They sat in the restaurant—in the main room, with regular people. That threw the place into a tizzy. The Secret Service was around Bush like angry bees. No waiter would approach.

She showed Bush the new speech. He read it with his head back.

“Oh,” he said. “The me-me-me stuff.”

Peggy said, “You know, it’s the person we’re electing here. It’s who you are ... that’s the difference.”

Bush said the difference was: “I know the other guys—they shouldn’t be President.”

He said: “Well ... would you like a drink?” His voice held a boy’s eagerness.

Teeter broke in, right away: “No, I think I’ll just have a Coke.”

Bush turned to Peggy. She was on a diet, wasn’t supposed to have anything. She was going to say no ... but she could see he’d be crushed.

“How about you, Peggy?”

“Well, I’d like to ...”

“Good!” said Bush. “Then I’ll have one, too.”

He got a martini, and he drank that sucker down.

“Well,” he said. “Would you like another?”

Even Teeter caught the drift now—he got a drink. Peggy got another glass of wine. Bush got another martini. But he stopped at two.

And the next day, Thursday, Bush went out into the cold again. This time, it wasn’t just chat at a grocery store: he showed up in a parka and a ballcap. He drove an eighteen-wheeler (with two Secret Service agents hanging off the side mirrors) around the lot at Cuzzin Richie’s Truck Stop. He parked his backside on a greasy vinyl seat and had him some breakfast. He pulled out his wallet and paid for his own. Then he moved on to a lumberyard, drove a forklift ...

This time, he said a budget freeze was a “cop-out”—in fact, the worst kind ... a Congressional cop-out! Bush’s voice held something new: conviction ... and contempt.

“Congress isn’t the real world,” he said. “They don’t decide. It’s all one long Continuing Resolution. They pass the bills that make the constituencies happy: pig farmers get Baby Pig Development Grants. Districts that wish they had a river get a bridge! ...

“Bob Dole, my opponent, says the answer here is a freeze. ... A freeze will freeze in all those studies of pigs and mating habits of butterflies!”

It was the first time Bush had taken Dole on, by name.

And he did something else for the first time, too:

He got to an old people’s home, late in the day—too late for network news—and he started to talk ... about his mother.

“You know, she calls me. She says, ‘I don’t like the things they’re saying about you, George.’ ” His hand grasped air to his heart. “So ... it’s a mother, to her little boy, still.”

And that led him to ... himself—not his jobs, all the things he’d been—but the way he felt about himself:

“I have a tendency—I confess to it—to avoid going on and on with great eloquent statements of belief. Some are better at that than I am.”

He was speaking softly to the small crowd.

“I don’t always articulate ... but I do feel. And I care too much to leave now. Our work isn’t done. So I’m working my heart out up here ... and I’m asking for your help.”

On the press bus, in gathering darkness, they were playing tapes, over and over, trying to catch the soft words, and buzzing about the “new Bush.”

That evening, for the first time, tracking polls showed Dole even with Bush in New Hampshire ... and Bush still bleeding everywhere.

That was the evening Bush saw the Straddle Ad. He winced. “God. That’s awful.”

It wasn’t pretty: every time Dole showed up on the screen, there were two Dole-faces—two-faced—pointed toward one another with the word “Straddled” across the screen.

The INF ... the oil import fee ... then taxes.

On taxes, the screen said “Straddle”—present tense—which faded out, to: “Taxes—He can’t say no.”

The voice-over said: “Bob Dole straddles, and he just won’t promise not to raise taxes. And you know what that means.”

Mosbacher stood behind Bush in the Clarion. “Well, it’s true,” he said.

“Is it?” Bush said. “Are you sure?”

Sununu had the backup research from Pinkerton: full memo—Dole’s votes, back to the Kennedy tax cut of ’63. ... They were covered.

Fuller said it seemed awfully negative.

Teeter said, no-no-negative-no.

Ailes did not defend the ad. He’d made the goddam thing on his own hook—that was statement enough.

Atwater didn’t weigh in, either ... but that night, George W. Bush called his father. ... Junior had been briefed by Atwater.

“Dad, have you looked at the ad?”

“Yeah. They seem to think it’s too negative. I do, too.”

“Are you sure all the others agree?”

“I think so.”

“Well,” Junior said carefully, “I’m not sure all the others agree. ... I just wanted to make sure you had, uh, full input.”

That kept the question alive. Friday brought it roaring back onto the table. Friday was the worst. For one thing, it snowed like hell. No one could get around on the roads. Bush had a breakfast speech at the Clarion—a hot speech, a zinger on Dole ... and no one came. No press, anyway.

When the white men got back to the Hall of Power, they found out Haig was pulling out ... and endorsing Bob Dole, at another hotel, in front of musta been three hundred reporters.

The problem wasn’t Haig backs Dole—Al Haig was two percent in the polls, and that was probably rounded off from something less. The problem was, with the snow, Haig-and-Dole was the only fresh video of the day—CNN ran that SOB a hundred times! ... The clip had Haig calling it quits ... Haig saying Dole was a man “who’d been there—and made a difference” ... Bush was a man “who’d just been there—period.” ... Then, there was Dole, striding up to the podium to grasp Haig’s hand, the two of them grinning and muttering jokes that only the other one could hear.

Bush himself, cooped up in the Clarion, must have seen the thing six times ... before Atwater switched off the TV—or switched it over to the VCR. Lee had something to show the Veep—a tape of Dole’s current ad, the one with a picture of Bush that fuzzed and faded in symbolic futility until it disappeared.

“It’s just like ours,” Lee said, “or, uh ... worse.”

Atwater was always, sometimes edgily, aware that he did not come from George Bush’s world. But Lee thought he knew Bush: he’d watched the man for fifteen years—since 1973, when Atwater was a rising star in the Young Republicans and Bush was RNC chairman. (In fact, it was ’73 when Atwater said to Bush, there was this sweet little intern in Strom Thurmond’s office. Lee was going to bring her by that night, to a fund-raiser. If Bush could mention, somehow, he just could not get along without Lee ... maybe she’d be impressed. Bush played his part, but he could see the young woman couldn’t care less about the Chairman of the GOP. So he called Atwater over: “Listen. Why don’t you take her out on my boat? Maybe get another couple of friends ... call Don Rhodes, tell him I said to use the boat.” That was Lee’s first date with his wife, Sally.)

What Lee always talked about was the Bush-code of conduct ... it drove him nuts. Bush had to be talked into doing what was good for him. Sometimes, he still wouldn’t do it. There were small things—like yesterday, someone asked about Noriega. Perfect chance for Bush to tee off on a drug-dirty dictator. ... But the Reagan White House was trying to cut a deal with Noriega. Bush wouldn’t say a word. ... Then there were big things—like this ad. Lee was sure Bush had to run the Straddle Ad ... or something, to take Dole down. But Lee knew he had to deal with the code. “George Bush,” Atwater would sometimes say, “is everything I’m not.”

“Sir ... he’s hittin’ you!” Lee said.

Sununu volunteered that the people of New Hampshire would not be confused if Bush hit back. They understood “comparative” ads. Sununu was always singing up the voters of New Hampshire—sagacious souls who’d elected him three times.

“Mr. Vahz Pres’ent,” Lee said gravely. “You may, uh ... this may, uhm, lose me mah job—but Ah think we’re behind ...”

Bush turned toward Teeter.        •

They were behind—for the first time—but it was tight. And Teeter did not want the ad. Teeter’s every instinct was to moderate Bush—rub every rough corner off until he rolled like a marble to the deep center of the bell curve. “Overnight, it’s within the margin of error,” Teeter said. “On the other hand, if you look at ...”

This wasn’t the time for on-the-one-hand-on-the-other.

“Mr. Vahz Pres’ent, Ah think we gotta, uh, hit ’em.”

Bush knew it was up to him—nothing collegial about it, in the end. But he could not sit there anymore, talking about it—he had to get moving ... do something. He’d go outside ... see how daughter Doro and her husband were doing, down the hall—maybe take a walk ... find some voters! He was out of his chair, hunting a coat ... he was out the door.

But not before he heard, or overheard, more talk about the ad, from the white men—and Barbara Bush, who said:

“I don’t think ours is that bad.”

DOLE DIDN’T THINK BUSH could take the pressure. He’d known the guy for twenty years. Never worked with him (that’s how Dole got to know most guys)—but he’d seen Bush, for hours at a time, when the Veep presided in the Senate ... seen him in a hundred meetings—politics. White House briefings. Bush never said anything in the meetings. He’d stare at his own tie, the arm of his chair, or whoever was talking—if it was the President, Bush always agreed. ... Hey! Hiiiii! Hey! He’d be kissing up to people afterward, talking tennis. Y’play Jimmy yesterday? ...

Nice guy—far as that went.

Tennis, terrific. Prob’ly great on a golf course.

Politics, that was another sort of sport.

Dole had seen to Bush’s bottom, he thought—in New Hampshire, eight years ago, 1980 ... when Bob Dole was nowhere and Bush was riding in the curl of the great wave. In those days, the Iowa bounce was a bounce—front page of the papers, cover of the newsmagazines, lead story on the six o’clock report. ... Bush was everywhere after he won Iowa—shot up twenty-five percent in the polls. Bush versus Reagan—that was the story. “There is a widespread perception,” The Washington Post reported, “that Reagan is fading fast.”

That’s why Reagan arranged to debate Bush, one-on-one—the Nashua Telegraph would sponsor the event. It was recognition that the race had boiled down to two men—why not make the face-off fact? Just two guys on stage at the local high school, Saturday night, three days before the vote.

It was high electoral theater.

And the last straw for Dole.

How could they freeze him out? How could they act like Bob Dole didn’t exist? Dole, Howard Baker, Phil Crane, John Anderson ... were they non-candidates?

Dole peppered the papers with angry quotes about Bush—the “Rockefeller candidate” ... who was “hired help for the big banks” ... “a member of the Trilateral Commission!” (Bill Loeb, publisher of the Union Leader, was happy to retail the slurs.) ... Dole-lawyers filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission to stop the Nashua Telegraph debate. The newspaper had to pull out as sponsor. But Ronald Reagan picked up the costs.

At that point, Dole began calling the other campaigns, working out an ambush. They would all show up at the high school—force a showdown, right there on TV—let Bush try to keep them out ... while the whole state watched.

(...) This was his time, Dole said—’88 was Bob Dole’s year. For three days after the Iowa caucus, Dole ate into Bush’s lead in New Hampshire. Dole made up eighteen points—and he was still climbing. Wirthlin reported on the tracking polls every morning.

“You’re up ...”

“It’s moving ...”

“Undecideds are breaking for us ...”

One week before, Dole would have been happy to finish in the same bracket with Bush—to cut the Veep’s lead to ten points. But now he could smell ... victoryyyy!

Dole would ask new reporters on his bus: “D’ja see Bush out there?” They thought it was a Dole joke. But Dole wanted to know—was Bush just gonna sit there?

Tell the truth, Dole couldn’t make sense of what the Dole campaign was doing: he’d spend all day, snaking around the state in huge motorcades—convoys, more like it—forty ragtag vehicles (Greyhounds, rent-a-cars, Winnebagos, a big snowplow that said “Dole” on the front) and two hundred people ... descending on some little town library ... or a school! (“Gaghh! What’re we doin’ with fourth-graders?”) ... But Senator Rudman and his smart guys insisted: that’s how it was done in New Hampshire.

Dole could have done without ninety percent of his own crowd—hell, he’d get along with one car and a kid to drive. But everybody wanted to be with Dole. Rudman was his corner man, Wirthlin was a constant. Brock—well, Bill Brock was the Big Guy. Dole’s D.C. offices were empty (Senator might need help in New Hampshire!) ... Washington lawyers, lobbyists, experts from the Finance Committee—they all had to talk to the Senator about New Hampshire! There were paratroop pooh-bahs dropping in from other states—they needed to “touch base with Bob.” There were reporters—a hundred, at least, that Dole had to carry along—and the networks wanted Dole to wear their microphones, or maybe they could ride a crew in his car, for a day-in-the-life: you know, minute by minute, on the way to the White House.

They wanted face time.

Face-to-face with Dole.

Dole wasn’t sure how this airborne, mechanized assault brigade looked to voters. He wasn’t sure anymore what he was trying to show to voters. “One of Us” didn’t quite fit here. The family farm was not an issue. “People with real problems” could perish unaided, as far as the State of New Hampshire was concerned. These people were conservative—a funny kind of conservative: talk about a couple of trillion dollars for Star Wars—people cheered. Bush could spend a million flying himself and fifty staff into the state for a dinner—nobody made a peep. People liked that go-go, write-a-check, paint-it-gold style ... as long as they didn’t pay any taxes.

Dole thought he might have a problem with taxes. Jack Kemp had spent the last year—for a while, he put ads on TV—painting both Dole and Bush as closet tax men. So Dole was going to cut his own tax ad. First night after Iowa—a GOP dinner in Nashua—Dole was going to tuck a line into his speech, how he’d veto any new tax bill from the Democrats. Kim Wells wrote the line—went so far as to type it on a half-sheet of paper. Rudman’s guys got the film crew into the dinner ... they were all set up. But this being the Dole campaign, they didn’t have a TelePrompTer—and, of course, no one could make Dole rehearse. So when Dole tried to unload the line, he had to pull out the paper, and he scowled at the sentence (couldn’t read a thing without his glasses) ... he stumbled in the middle and it sounded like something someone told him to say. The upshot was, the tax stuff looked lousy. So they made an ad with different film—Dole talking Gorbachev, U.S. strength, and peace.

Maybe they’d have another chance—Dole already said, a million times, he’d veto any bill that raised the income tax rates. ... Anyway, Wirthlin said the tax issue wasn’t cutting with voters. And Kemp was not the problem—just Bush: What was he doing?

Not much.

Four days before the vote, Dole’s smart guys checked around and announced, to the delight of all, that Bush wasn’t doing anything! He had no new ads scheduled—hadn’t bought any airtime for the weekend—save for one half-hour roadblock, all channels, for one of Ailes’s specials, “Ask George Bush.”

That was Friday—that wonderful snow day—and Dole with the only news on TV. (Al Hayyyg—great American! ...)

Late afternoon, in his hotel room, Dole was closeted with Wirthlin and Rudman, who were telling Bob things were going ... great. (“Bob, I know New Hampshire and, believe me, Bob ...”)

Dole’s new ad ran before the local TV news: it was Dole talking off the cuff about national security. “So we haveta be strong!... Not for war—Bob Dole doesn’t want war. Bob Dole wants peace!” The camera went to freeze-frame on Dole’s face.

“I love it!” Wirthlin said.

Dole was squinting at the screen. “I don’t get it,” he said.

Walt Riker poked his head in. “Agh! C’mon innn,” Dole said. “What’s cookin’?”

“Senator, you’re ahead! These’re from CBS—I just got ’em ...” He read off the numbers:

Dole 32 ... Bush 29.

“They gonna use ’em?”

“Think so.”

“Pretty goood!”

It was better than good. It sent Rudman into orbit: Believe me, Bob, the people of New Hampshire, Bob—remember, I told you, Bob?—Bob? ... Meanwhile, Riker was conducting, channel to channel, a Dole TV rondo. After seven years as Press Secretary, Riker was a cable-ready maestro: he hit four networks, three Boston news shows, PBS, New Hampshire’s Channel Nine, Headline News twice ... and Dole was never off the screen for more than a minute. Dole, Haig-and-Dole, Haig, Dole, Haig-and-Dole Dole Dole. ... Wirthlin had his black book out, he was on the phone to Time and Newsweek. Strictly off the record, understand: he was promoting Dole for the cover. “You guys’re gonna want it. Dole’s going to win this thing!”

Dole couldn’t pay attention, as he wanted, to the TV (Gagghh! Haig was live with Dan Rather—killing Bush—should’ve made an ad with Haig!) ... or the phone calls (“No, this week is the cover!”) ... or the “Bob-Bob-Bob.” ... He had to think—this thing was moving fast. He lifted his eyebrows, murmured to Riker, who told the others, “Senator’s gotta get a little rest.”

Dole couldn’t feel it—that rush of certainty, when it all comes together—and he thought there had to be something more. There had to be some way to lock people on, something to say, something about him ... something he had to do. It couldn’t happen like this—sitting in a hotel and Bush’s numbers melting away. Didn’t happen like this—how could it? ... Unless Bush was going to sit on his hands—play dead all week. Why would he?

What was he doing?

GEORGE BUSH WAS HAVING a snowball fight with the press in a parking lot outside the Clarion. He spotted a guy trying to unstick his car—he ran over, offered to help. (The man refused.) Bush ran the other way to shake another voter’s hand, pat his dog. Everywhere Bush ran, the Service ran. Sununu puffed behind. The press tried to run along, but the Service kept them away ... and there really wasn’t anything to ask.

Bush had the air of a kid trapped inside on a rainy day. He walked through the snow, with Doro and her husband, Bill LeBlond, to some horrid housing project—condos, or townhouses—the nearest evidence of civilization (or at least Reagan-era lending policies). Bush was hunting voters, but the condo-stalag was new and unpeopled. So, with son-in-law Bill, who was a budding builder in Maine, he earnestly talked construction.

Bush wondered what Dole and the others were doing in the snow. He was pretty sure Dole wasn’t taking the afternoon to walk with his daughter. Dole always struck Bush as a lonely man—didn’t have the same, well ... blessings as the Bush clan. Or values: “family” and “values” were words in near equation to Bush. He couldn’t figure how it was for Dole. ... That look he’d seen on Dole’s face when Dole came at him, in the Senate, waving that Wittgraf press release ... “My wife!” ... Dole was upset, sure—but it wasn’t like he wanted explanation. Didn’t want to talk—you do that in private ... decent guys do. Bush called it “that stunt Dole pulled”—like it was bad taste ... bad form! ... Dole was acting like a bully.

Friday night, Bush went over a new speech with Peggy Noonan. The speech attacked Dole ... the language made Bush edgy, so he fiddled with it, made it ungainly—but he made it something he could say.

“I don’t want to say he’s a bad guy,” he told Peggy. Bush’s voice held no protest—more like explanation—he was searching: not a bad man ... just not the right man.

That night, Junior called again about the ad:

“Yeah, I was watching TV,” Bush said. “A lot of the others are more negative. I mean, if you put it in context ...”

Saturday morning, before Bush left for the north of the state, Atwater and Ailes were in urgent conference in the hotel hallway. (Ailes had come out from under editing “Ask George Bush.”)... “Look,” Ailes said. “I can tell him he needs this ad. But me supporting it, just sounds like I made the damn thing ...”

“Goddam, Ah ’gree with you!” Atwater said. “We gotta, uh, kick ’em in the nuts!”

They went together into the VP suite. This time Teeter said they were behind—maybe five points ...

“Shit,” Bush said to the floor. “I thought ...”

“There’s been slippage,” Teeter said. “There’s enough undecideds to go either way, but if you look at ...”

“Mr. Vahz Pres’ent, you may not wanna hear this from me, but Ah can’t go out of this room without ...”

“Look,” Sununu said, “if it’s a problem of being negative ...”

Bush was slumped in a chair. The problem was how it was going to look. “The press is gonna say we’re desperate. Have we checked those facts?”

Ailes was going to wade in again: the ad was no more than a statement that ...

But ... that’s when they got the word. Actually, Ailes never caught the word—from Bush.

Bush was saying, “... this is your business, not mine ...”

As Ailes would recall: “Atwater just ran out of that room like a scalded goddam dog.”

Ailes and Sununu caught up with Lee in the hallway.

“Can we get it on?”

Traffic departments at the TV stations were closed for the weekend. By Monday, of course, it would be too late.

“I got a friend at one station in Boston,” Ailes said. “Twenty years I know the guy ...”

“Lemme see,” Sununu said, “what I can do with Channel Nine.” That was the only station in New Hampshire. Sununu wore his accustomed smirk of control. “I think I may be able to help.”

In fact, Sununu knew he could get the ad on Channel Nine. One month before, the station had asked for an interview with the Vice President. Sununu brought Bush down from Maine on a Sunday. They taped the interview, and another segment for that night’s news. Then they hung around for another hour while the Veep posed for pictures with every staffer at the station. He posed with their children. In Washington, he wrote personal notes for every photo.

Now, that ... was see-me-touch-me-feel-me.

The Straddle Ad would go on the air that same afternoon.

On the long ride over the mountains to Wolfeboro, Peggy Noonan sat next to Bush in the limo. Teeter faced Bush on a jump seat. Bush was silent. Peggy read the papers—the stories about Haig backing Dole. She got to a quote, something Haig said to Dole (someone overheard them on stage, after all) ... “Well,” Haig had said, “I did as much damage as I could.”

“Mr. Vice President,” Peggy said. “Have you seen this?”

Bush looked at the quote. Then he looked at Teeter, at Peggy, then he stared out the window.

“That’s sick,” he said.

Doing damage ... to his life, his reputation. Didn’t that just show?

Lee Atwater was, at that moment, buying eighteen-hundred points of air-time for the Straddle Ad. That meant hundreds of thousands of dollars. More important, it meant the average New Hampshireman with a TV would see Bob Dole made a two-faced liar eighteen times over the next sixty hours.

That was different ... that was just a comparative ad.

Anyway, after the smoke cleared, Sununu said the ad wasn’t really crucial—just one more positive statement of Bush’s tax principles. Sununu said that often. Sununu was a guy who showed judgment, Bush thought. The Veep mentioned, amid the family, that Sununu would make a good Chief of Staff. Meanwhile, Sununu was increasingly in evidence at Bush, Inc. By the spring, he would become a Campaign Cochairman, a de facto seventh on the Gee-Six.

By that time, Bush, too, would decide that New Hampshire turned, in the end, because of all the friends he’d made. All those contacts Sununu talked about. See-me-feely ... whatever that was. Bush said: “We didn’t win because of that ad.”

That was the only fight he ever had with Ailes. It got pretty hot: “Let’s don’t rewrite history,” Ailes said.

“I didn’t win because of that ad.”

Ailes had to drop it. “Well,” he said, “let’s just say it didn’t hurt.”

THAT WEEKEND, DOLE FELT it slipping away. Before he ever saw the Straddle Ad ... before network numbers showed his curve topping out and Bush on the way up again ... even with Wirthlin still telling him, “You’re going to win—three or four points, at least ... maybe big—ten or better.”

“No, I’m not,” Dole said. “I’m going to lose by five or six.” What Dole felt was the heat slipping from his own events. What disappeared was that feeling of history pushing with him. He could still go out and say (as he did) that momentum was his: five days ago, Bush had led in New Hampshire by twenty points—now Bush’s lead was nothing ... but the reason for that momentum was back in Iowa—there was nothing new bringing voters to Dole.

What Dole saw on TV were pictures of Bush—Bush touring with Ted Williams, Bush throwing snowballs, Bush at McDonald’s ... on a forklift ... driving a plow. The guy was showing he wasn’t going to curl up and die. There was news tape of busloads of college volunteers for Bush, arriving in state, met by Atwater. Each kid got a map and a kit and an area to cover. They were organized—twenty colleges! (Dole was lucky to have people who’d been to college.) The Bush operation put out tens of thousands of fliers and made twenty thousand calls, reminding voters to watch “Ask George Bush.” It was an obvious phony, a “town meeting” of Ailes-town ... but by the time the Bushies had thumped the tub so hard, the TV ran snips of the thing like it was news!

Dole did his events—schools, old-age homes, town halls—remembering to say, at almost every stop, that Bob Dole was not going to raise taxes. He’d look for revenue—anyone facing a deficit had to look everywhere he could—but Dole would not raise the rates in the new income-tax law. The crowds applauded—good crowds—hundreds of people in a little town! But, as Dole muttered in the car, he was “dipping the ocean with a spoon.” At that moment, Bush might be reaching a hundred thousand viewers with the message that Dole could not wait to get at their wallets.

By that weekend, even Rudman’s people were bitching: their plan had been ignored—they were sold out! Where was Dole’s tax ad? Rudman himself came at Dole to complain about Brock. “Even a half-baked Senate campaign can turn an ad around in two days!” Dole just said: “What can I do now?” ... In fact, he had an attack ad on Bush—the Footprints Ad: boots crunching through snow while a narrator ran through Bush’s résumé ... the last shot showing the snow—undisturbed. (Bush never left any footprints, despite all those Important Jobs.) The ad was ready before the week began, but Rudman said it was too negative. (They were winning! Bob had to Be Nice!) ... Now it was too late. Dole hadn’t bought airtime.

There was one chance to send a message, statewide: a televised debate at St. Anselm College. Dole spent most of ninety minutes trying to Be Nice ... and angling for a chance to answer Bush on taxes. But all of a sudden, from Dole’s other side, Pete du Pont pulled out a copy of the standard New Hampshire no-tax pledge—and poked it at Dole.

“Sign it,” du Pont said.

Dole wasn’t going to sign anything—couldn’t hold it down to sign it, couldn’t read it without his glasses! (If Dole were the kind to sign whatever they handed him, he could have saved himself a huge headache on the INF treaty—he could have signed on, like Bush, before he’d even seen the thing.)

But now he was squinting at this paper, on stage, on TV—with du Pont and everyone else staring at him ... what was he supposed to do? This kind of stunt was fine for du Pont. But if Dole got to be President, he was going to have to close a gap of $200 billion a year.

Dole let the paper drop from his gaze. “Give it to George,” he said. “I’d have to read it first.”

Good line. Got a laugh. And Dole lost his chance to make his point on taxes.

Dole would replay that scene in his head for years afterward. Sometimes he’d lie awake at night, thinking what he could have said. Maybe he should have signed the damn thing.

It was certainly bad politics to refuse—his supporters said it killed his chances in New Hampshire. They said it was the only time in ’88 that anyone lost on a matter of public policy.

He did lose, decisively. By Tuesday, it wasn’t close, though Dole kept hoping it wasn’t true—maybe the feeling in his belly was wrong, things had changed, or ... maybe his Big Guys were right! There were Wirthlin’s numbers in the paper, again: Dole was going to win!

Podéis leer el libro aquí.


4 de diciembre de 2018. Treinta años después de que le arrebatase su mejor oportunidad de ser Presidente, Bob Dole, de 95 años, se levanta de su silla de ruedas para despedirse de su eterno adversario y reverso dentro del GOP pero compañero de la Generación Más Grande, la que combatió en la Segunda Guerra Mundial.