Decision Points Page 6

  On the campaign trail with Laura.

  On the Fourth of July, we campaigned in Muleshoe, in the far northern part of the district. In the May primary, I had received 6 of the 230 votes cast in Bailey County. The way I saw it, I had plenty of room for improvement. Laura and I smiled and waved at the spectators from the back of our white pickup truck. Nobody cheered. Nobody even waved. People looked at us like we were aliens. By the end I was convinced the only supporter I had in Muleshoe was the one sitting next to me.

  A campaign ad during my run for Congress.

  Election night came, and it turned out that old Governor Shivers was right. I won big in Midland County and in the southern part of the district, but not by enough to offset Hance’s margins in Lubbock and elsewhere. The final tally was 53 percent to 47 percent.

  I hated losing, but I was glad I’d run. I enjoyed the hard work of politics, meeting people and making my case. I learned that allowing your opponent to define you is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in a campaign. And I discovered that I could accept defeat and move on. That was not easy for someone as competitive as I am. But it was an important part of my maturing.

  As for Congressman Kent Hance, he deserved to win that race, and we became good friends. Two gubernatorial and presidential victories later, he is still the only politician ever to beat me. He went on to serve three terms in the House before losing a bid for the Senate. Then he became a Republican and contributed to my campaigns. Kent is now the chancellor of Texas Tech. He says that without him, I would never have become president. He’s probably right.

  Six months after my campaign ended, I had another race to think about. Dad announced his candidacy for the 1980 presidential election. He was a long shot against Ronald Reagan, but he ran a strong campaign in Iowa and won an upset victory in the caucus. Unfortunately, his hot streak ran out amid the cold winters of New Hampshire. Reagan defeated him there and continued on to the Republican nomination.

  There was a lot of speculation about whom Reagan would choose for vice president. At the convention in Detroit, he was in discussions with Gerald Ford about some sort of co-presidency. They agreed it wouldn’t work—a good decision. Then Reagan called Dad and asked him to be his running mate—an even better decision.

  Dad with President Reagan.

  On election night, the Reagan-Bush ticket crushed Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale 489 to 49 in the Electoral College. Laura and I flew to Washington for the Inauguration on January 20, 1981, the first time the ceremony was held on the majestic west front of the Capitol. We beamed as Justice Potter Stewart swore in Dad. Then Ronald Reagan repeated the oath administered by Chief Justice Warren Burger.

  As a history major, I was thrilled to have a front-row seat. As a son, I was filled with pride. It never crossed my mind that I would one day stand on that platform and hold up my right hand at two presidential inaugurations.

  The early 1980s brought tough moments, from a painful recession to the bombing of our Marine barracks in Lebanon, but the Reagan-Bush administration accomplished what it had promised. They cut taxes, regained the edge in the Cold War, and restored American morale. When President Reagan and Dad put their record before the voters in 1984, they won forty-nine of fifty states.

  Dad was the logical favorite for the 1988 presidential nomination, but the race would not be easy. He had been so loyal to President Reagan that he had done almost nothing to promote himself. He was also battling the infamous Van Buren factor. Not since Martin Van Buren followed Andrew Jackson into the White House in 1836 had a vice president been elected to succeed the president with whom he had served.

  Early in his second term, President Reagan generously allowed Dad to use the presidential retreat at Camp David for a meeting with his campaign team. It was thoughtful of Dad to invite all his siblings and children. I enjoyed meeting his team, although I had some reservations. Dad’s top strategist was a young guy named Lee Atwater. A fast-talking, guitar-playing South Carolinian, Lee was considered one of the country’s hottest political consultants. No question he was smart. No doubt he had experience. I wanted to know if he was loyal.

  When Dad asked if any of the family members had questions, my hand went up. “Lee, how do we know we can trust you, since your business partners are working for other candidates?” I asked. Jeb chimed in: “If someone throws a grenade at our dad, we expect you to jump on it.” Our tone was tough, but it reflected our love of Dad and our expectations of his staff—an agenda that put the candidate first and personal ambition second.

  Lee said he had known Dad at the Republican National Committee, admired him a lot, and wanted him to win. He added that he was planning to sever his conflicting business connections. Yet it was obvious that our doubts had shaken him. Later in the day, he sought out Jeb and me. If we were so worried, he asked, why didn’t one of us move to D.C., help in the campaign, and keep an eye on him and the staff?

  The invitation intrigued me. The timing was right. After the downturn in the oil markets, my partners and I had merged our exploration company and found jobs for all the employees. Dad liked the idea, and Laura was willing to give it a try.

  At the campaign office in downtown Washington, I had no title. As Dad put it, I already had a good one: son. I focused on fundraising, traveling the country to deliver surrogate speeches, and boosting the morale of volunteers by thanking them on Dad’s behalf. From time to time, I also reminded some high-level staffers that they were on a team to advance George Bush’s election, not their own careers. I learned a valuable lesson about Washington: Proximity to power is empowerment. Having Dad’s ear made me effective.

  One of my tasks was to sort through journalists’ requests for profile pieces. When Margaret Warner of Newsweek told us she wanted to do an interview, I recommended that we cooperate. Margaret was talented and seemed willing to write a fair piece. Dad agreed.

  Mother called me the morning the magazine hit the newsstands. “Have you seen Newsweek?” Not yet, I told her. “They called your father a wimp!” she growled.

  I quickly tracked down a copy and was greeted by the screaming headline: “Fighting the Wimp Factor.” I couldn’t believe it. The magazine was insinuating that my father, a World War II bomber pilot, was a wimp. I was red-hot. I got Margaret on the phone. She politely asked what I thought of the story. I impolitely told her I thought she was part of a political ambush. She muttered something about her editors being responsible for the cover. I did not mutter. I railed about editors and hung up. From then on, I was suspicious of political journalists and their unseen editors.

  After finishing third in Iowa, Dad rallied with a victory in New Hampshire and went on to earn the nomination. His opponent in the general election was the liberal governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis. Dad started the campaign with a great speech at the convention in New Orleans. I was amazed at the power of his words, elegantly written and forcefully delivered. He spoke of a “kinder, gentler” nation, built by the compassion and generosity of the American people—what he called “a thousand points of light.” He outlined a strong policy agenda, including a bold pledge: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”

  I was impressed with Dad’s sense of timing. He had managed to navigate perfectly the transition from loyal vice president to candidate. He left the convention leading the polls and charged down the home stretch. On November 8, 1988, the family watched the returns at our friend Dr. Charles Neblett’s house in Houston. I knew Dad had won when Ohio and New Jersey, two critical states, broke his way. By the end of the night, he had carried forty states and 426 electoral votes. George H.W. Bush, the man I admired and adored, was elected the forty-first president of the United States.

  Laura and I enjoyed our year and a half in Washington. But when people suggested that I stay in Washington and leverage my contacts, I never considered it. I had zero interest in being a lobbyist or hanger-on in Dad’s administration. Not long after the election, we packed up for the trip back to Texas.

  I
had another reason for moving home. Near the end of Dad’s campaign, I received an intriguing phone call from my former business partner Bill DeWitt. Bill’s father had owned the Cincinnati Reds and was well connected in the baseball community. He had heard that Eddie Chiles, the principal owner of the Texas Rangers, was looking to sell the team. Would I be interested in buying? I almost jumped out of my chair. Owning a baseball team would be a dream come true. I was determined to make it happen.

  My strategy was to make myself the buyer of choice. Laura and I moved to Dallas, and I visited Eddie and his wife Fran frequently. I promised to be a good steward of the franchise he loved. He said, “You’ve got a great name and a lot of potential. I’d love to sell to you, son, but you don’t have any money.”

  I went to work lining up potential investors, mostly friends across the country. When Commissioner Peter Ueberroth argued that we needed more local owners, I went to see a highly successful Fort Worth investor, Richard Rainwater. I had courted Richard before and he had turned me down. This time he was receptive. Richard agreed to raise half the money for the franchise, so long as I raised the other half and agreed to make his friend Rusty Rose co-managing partner.

  I went to meet Rusty at Brook Hollow Golf Club in Dallas. He seemed like a shy guy. He had never followed baseball, but he was great with finances. We talked about him being the inside guy who dealt with the numbers, and me being the outside guy who dealt with the public.

  Shortly thereafter, Laura and I were at a black-tie charity function. Our plans for the team had leaked out, and a casual acquaintance pulled me aside and whispered: “Do you know that Rusty Rose is crazy? You’d better watch out.” At first I blew this off as mindless chatter. Then I fretted. What did “crazy” mean?

  I called Richard and told him what I had heard. He suggested that I ask Rusty myself. That would be a little awkward. I barely knew the guy, and I was supposed to question his mental stability? I saw Rusty at a meeting that afternoon. As soon as I entered the conference room, he walked over to me and said, “I understand you have a problem with my mental state. I see a shrink. I have been sick. What of it?”

  It turns out Rusty was not crazy. This was his awkward way of laying out the truth, which was that he suffered from a chemical imbalance that, if not properly treated, could drive his bright mind toward anxiety. I felt so small. I apologized.

  Rusty and I went on to build a great friendship. He helped me to understand how depression, an illness I later learned had also afflicted Mother for a time in her life, could be managed with proper care. Two decades later in the Oval Office, I stood with Senators Pete Domenici and Ted Kennedy and signed a bill mandating that insurance companies cover treatment for patients with mental illness. As I did, I thought of my friend Rusty Rose.

  With Rusty and Richard as part of our ownership group, we were approved to buy the team.** Eddie Chiles suggested that he introduce us to the fans as the new owners on Opening Day 1989. We walked out of the dugout, across the lush green grass, and onto the pitcher’s mound, where we joined Eddie and legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry, who threw out the first pitch. I turned to Rusty and said, “This is as good as it gets.”

  Over the next five seasons, Laura and I went to fifty or sixty ball games a year. We saw a lot of wins, endured our fair share of losses, and enjoyed countless hours side by side. We took the girls to spring training and brought them to the park as much as possible. I traveled throughout the Rangers’ market, delivering speeches to sell tickets and talking up the ball club with local media. Over time, I grew more comfortable behind the lectern. I learned how to connect with a crowd and convey a clear message. I also gained valuable experience handling tough questions from journalists, in this case mostly about our shaky pitching rotation.

  In the Rangers’ dugout with our girls. Owning a ballclub was my dream, and I was certain it was the best job I’d ever have.

  Running the Rangers sharpened my management skills. Rusty and I spent our time on the major financial and strategic issues, and left the baseball decisions to baseball men. When people did not perform, we made changes. It wasn’t easy to ask decent folks like Bobby Valentine, a dynamic manager who had become a friend of mine, to move on. But I tried to deliver the news in a thoughtful way, and Bobby handled it like a professional. I was grateful when, years later, I heard him say, “I voted for George W. Bush, even though he fired me.”

  When Rusty and I took over, the Rangers had finished with a losing record seven of the previous nine years. The club posted a winning record four of our first five seasons. The improvements on the field brought more people to the stands. Still, the economics of baseball were tough for a small-market team. We never asked the ownership group for more capital, but we never distributed cash, either.

  Rusty and I realized the best way to increase the long-term value of the franchise was to upgrade our stadium. The Rangers were a major league team playing in a minor league ballpark. We designed a public-private financing system to fund the construction of a new stadium. I had no objection to a temporary sales tax increase to pay for the park, so long as local citizens had a chance to vote on it. They passed it by a margin of nearly two to one.

  Thanks to the leadership of Tom Schieffer—a former Democratic state representative who did such a fine job overseeing the stadium project that I later asked him to serve as ambassador to Australia and Japan—the beautiful new ballpark was ready for Opening Day 1994. Over the following years, millions of Texans came to watch games at the new venue. It was a great feeling of accomplishment to know that I had been part of the management team that made it possible. By then, though, a pennant race wasn’t the only kind I had on my mind.

  Shortly after we bought the Rangers in 1989, the campaign for the 1990 Texas gubernatorial election began. Several friends in politics suggested I run. I was flattered but never considered it seriously.

  Most of my political involvement focused on Dad. Within months of taking office as president, he was confronted with seismic shifts in the world. With almost no warning, the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. I admired the way Dad managed the situation. He knew grandstanding could needlessly provoke the Soviets, who needed time and space to make the transition out of communism peacefully.

  Thanks to Dad’s steady diplomacy at the end of the Cold War—and his strong responses to aggression in Panama and Iraq—the country had tremendous trust in George Bush’s foreign policy judgment. But I was worried about the economy, which had started to slow in 1989. By 1990, I feared a recession could be coming. I liquidated my meager holdings and paid off the loan I had taken out to buy my share of the Rangers. I hoped any downturn would end quickly, for the country and for Dad.

  Meanwhile, Dad had to decide whether to stand for reelection. “Son, I’m not so sure I ought to run again,” he told me as we were fishing together in Maine in the summer of 1991.

  “Really?” I asked. “Why?”

  “I feel responsible for what happened to Neil,” he said.

  My brother Neil had served on the board of Silverado, a failed savings and loan in Colorado. Dad believed Neil had been subjected to harsh press attacks because he was the president’s son. I felt awful for Neil, and I could understand Dad’s anguish. But the country needed George Bush’s leadership. I was relieved when Dad told the family he had one last race in him.

  The reelection effort got off to a bad start. The first lesson in electoral politics is to consolidate your base. But in 1992, Dad’s base was eroding. The primary reason was his reneging on his vow not to raise taxes—the infamous “Read my lips” line from his 1988 convention speech. Dad had accepted a tax increase from the Democratic Congress in return for reining in spending. While his decision benefited the budget, he had made a political mistake.

  Pat Buchanan, the far-right commentator, challenged Dad in the New Hampshire primary and came away with 37 percent—a serious protest vote. To make matters worse, Texas billionaire Ross Perot decided to mount a third
-party campaign. He preyed on disillusioned conservatives with his anti-deficit, anti-trade rhetoric. One of Perot’s campaign centers was across the street from my office in Dallas. Looking out the window was like watching a daily tracking poll. Cadillacs and SUVs lined up to collect Perot bumper stickers and yard signs. I realized Dad would have to fight a two-front battle for reelection, with Perot on one flank and the Democratic nominee on the other.

  By the spring of 1992, it was clear who that nominee would be, Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. Clinton was twenty-two years younger than Dad—and six weeks younger than me. The campaign marked the beginning of a generational shift in American politics. Up to that point, every president since Franklin Roosevelt had served during World War II, either in the military or as commander in chief. By 1992, Baby Boomers and those younger made up a huge portion of the electorate. They were naturally drawn to support someone of their own generation. Clinton was smart enough to steer away from Dad’s strengths in foreign policy. He recognized the economic anxiety in the country and ran on a disciplined message: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

  I stayed in close touch with Dad throughout the election year. By the early summer of 1992, the campaign hadn’t gained traction. I told Dad he ought to think about a bold move to shake up the dynamics of the race. One possibility was to replace Vice President Dan Quayle, whom I liked and respected, with a new running mate. I suggested to Dad that he consider Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. Dick was smart, serious, experienced, and tough. He had done a superb job overseeing the military during the liberation of Panama and the Gulf War. Dad said no. He thought the move would look desperate and embarrass Dan. In retrospect, I don’t think Dad would have done better with someone else as his running mate. But I never completely gave up on my idea of a Bush-Cheney ticket.