Bush Now Walking for President

Vice President George Bush isn’t running for President--yet. Loping might be a more accurate description, or jogging, or even walking purposefully. But running, no. In his relaxed campaign appearance here last weekend he displayed none of the frenetic urgency that marks the seven Democratic hopefuls already pressing themselves on this state as relentlessly as the heat.

Bush is in no hurry to make the transition from vice president to candidate. After seven years as the loyal salesman for Ronald Reagan’s Administration, he is only slowly beginning to sell himself. In recent speeches, he has offered modest post-Reagan proposals on education and agriculture. And before a group of local Republicans assembled at the Laramar Ballroom here, Bush gave an unvarnished political pitch about his credentials for the Oval Office. But taking questions, he still talked more about what the Reagan Administration has done than what a Bush Administration might do. Details on Bush’s own priorities are coming, his aides insist--later.

This leisurely approach is anything but casual. Especially now that the Iran- contra hearings have concluded without seriously wounding him, Bush stands as the clear front-runner, with support from 30%-40% of the Republican electorate. That strength allows Bush to control the pace of the contest, and his advisers have decided to stay on low throttle through most of 1987. Bush has avoided other candidates at joint appearances; he is limiting his participation in debates to five, none before this December; he has discussed issues only gingerly and he is planning a late announcement of his candidacy--no earlier than October, possibly later.

This strategy is shaping the Republican race. The cumulative effect is to shorten the Republican contest--to turn it into a sprint rather than a marathon. Each month that the race inches along in low gear gives Bush’s opponents a little less time to make the case for doing something that has been done only once before--denying the nomination to a sitting vice president. “The thing that is most finite in this process,” says Bush deputy campaign manager Rich Bond, “is time.”

As long as Bush refuses to engage the field, it’s likely the Republican race will generate fewer sparks--and thus attract less attention from the press--than the Democratic battle. In that way, Bush’s aloofness makes it tougher for any of the other candidates to get noticed.

Among Bush’s competitors, only Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas has the national stature and media access to disrupt the vice president’s timetable. But Dole, though stepping up his campaign schedule this month, has been in no hurry either. Restrained by his Senate responsibilities, he is spending only about three days a month in Iowa, not much for a challenger. And when Bush refused to appear on William F. Buckley’s debate for the GOP candidates, Dole pulled out too. Dole appears content to sit in the number two spot, on the assumption that sooner or later the choice will come down to him and Bush, and an early start only increases one of the other contenders’ chances to challenge his position in the first tier.

“The Dole people are running the same campaign as the Bush people,” says Stuart Rothenberg, director of the conservative Institute for Government and Politics. “In a sense they are both playing front-runners; they are satisfied to play one-two.”

Dole’s acquiescence frees Bush to plot his course in a way that reflects his advisers’ reading of the last two presidential races. Bush’s camp has rejected the approach taken by the last front-runner, Democrat Walter F. Mondale in 1984. Unlike typical front-runners, Mondale sought to accelerate the race. In the year before the election, he encouraged straw polls, clawed for endorsements and tried to grind down his opponents before the race even began. This extended assault successfully depleted the treasuries of Mondale’s opponents, who spent badly needed funds battling him in meaningless popularity contests. But it also highlighted Mondale’s own flaws and set the stage for Gary Hart’s emergence.

Bush’s aides take another lesson from the 1984 race. Mondale’s strategy of stretching out the race was enormously expensive; by the time he got through New Hampshire, Mondale had spent over half the funds he could legally commit; he was financially pinched just when Hart’s attack peaked. As the front-runner in 1980, Ronald Reagan squandered money even more quickly, with even less to show for it. Reagan’s difficulties with the spending cap allowed Bush to outspend--and beat--him in several later primaries.

Bush’s aides insist they have learned from those mistakes. Bush has raised money faster than any previous presidential candidate--his finance staff expects to collect $16 million this year--and he places an unusual emphasis on stockpiling money. With the injection of matching funds coming early next year, Bush hopes to have $10 million in the bank on the eve of the Iowa caucus. “Because of the nature of the spending laws, and the massive impact of Super Tuesday next March,” says Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, “this year as important as anything you do is how you raise your money and how you husband it.”

Though his aides don’t talk about it, Bush’s efforts to slow the race have a third root. His strategy, in the eyes of opponents and other observers, is essentially defensive. Edward J. Rollins, the former Reagan-Bush campaign manager now running the campaign of Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), traces Bush’s caution to the results of the convoluted Michigan delegate selection process that began last summer. Though his competitors believe Bush forces inspired the early contest, the results were ambiguous at best for the vice president. “After that happened, they got a little bit gun-shy,” says Rollins. “Instead of going out and trying to meet everybody, they are trying to create the illusion that they are the inevitable nominee. He hasn’t given anybody a reason to go out and support George Bush with enthusiasm.”

That analysis pinpoints the danger in Bush’s strategy. In the eyes of many Republicans, Bush remains a shaky front-runner who faces deep public uncertainty about his personality and priorities. His biggest challenge, as Bond acknowledges, “is to articulate how he would handle things as President.” The longer he waits, the less time he has to dispel those persistent doubts.

But the threat his opponents face in allowing Bush to compress the race may be even greater. The 1984 Democratic race suggests that it takes months to develop a case against the front-runner. Hart and Sen. John H. Glenn Jr. (D-Ohio) began road-testing their arguments against Mondale five months before the first vote. By the time Iowans trudged to the caucuses, Democratic insiders everywhere were already wondering whether Mondale might be too tied to “special interests” or the policies of “the past.”

The Republicans of 1988 are not yet developing any such case against Bush. Many seemed to be hoping that the Iran- contra affair would sweep Bush away. Lately, they have been relying on the argument that Bush cannot win a general election. But that electability argument has never swayed primary voters, who think like partisans, not political strategists. Despite his money and organization, Bush isn’t invincible. But to beat him, challengers are going to need a better case. And, even if they find one, they are going to need time to develop it--probably more time than they now believe. If Bush isn’t running, the clock is.