From Wimp to Winner--Bush’s Air of Electability

Ronald Reagan and Lee Iacocca have one thing in common: Each is going to be a hard act to follow.

Iacocca’s business future is publicly undetermined, but the political calendar has set the date for Reagan’s succession. Following the Iowa caucuses, the succession appeared up for grabs. Historically, after all, vice presidents aren’t winners.

How come, three months later, George Bush has generated an air of electability?

Twice as many Democratic primary votes were cast on Super Tuesday as Republican. Nevertheless, Bush got more votes than any of the Democrats.

How does a wimp become a winner? Obviously the pundits missed something.

That the electorate is responding more favorably to Bush’s varied background than the pundits do is clear not only from primary results but also from New Hampshire pre-primary election polling commissioned by Bush’s former rival, Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.): 30% cited Bush’s experience factor, twice as many as citing “better known”; 10% said that the vice president “would know what to expect.” Even in the “like least” summary, 15% found nothing to dislike about Bush, while 10% disliked only his alliance with Reagan. The preppy, wimpy factors, along with Iran-Contra, were in single digits.

Constitutionally, except for the Senate tie-breaker requirement, the vice presidency is a nothing office. It is a tabula rasa , a blank slate, save what is spelled out by whichever vice president is in office. The electorate apparently believes that George Bush, Ronald Reagan’s only vice president, has written a good prescription for the job and is filling it. Neither Bob Dole nor Pat Robertson nor Jack Kemp could persuade Republicans otherwise.

As a point of reference, two Connecticut senators of a preceding generation, Thomas Dodd and Prescott Bush, fathered sons now prominent in American life. The second-generation Sen. Dodd, Christopher, now directs the neo-isolationist liberals trying to place guilt on Uncle Sam in our current Central American security affairs.

The second-generation Bush, who struck out on his own to Texas, has experienced public life legislatively, diplomatically, politically and administratively. He was initially criticized by hard-liners on the right as too pragmatic--a criticism that endures. The heterogeneity of his past apparently worries the press more than it worries the electorate. The same was said of Winston Churchill before he became prime minister.

Indeed, the experience-stability characteristic of the earlier British political tradition may turn out to be a factor explaining the Bush dominance of the Republican field in 1988. Historically, Americans have known when they want change and when they want to stand pat. If there were to be an amalgam of the conservative character and a British desk officer, George Bush would be it.

After World War II, George and Barbara Bush turned their backs on Eastern suburbia and headed for the Sun Belt. That was when oil was $2 a barrel and marketing was at the whim of the Texas Railroad Commission, which set production quotas.

Bush moved to Houston and built a successful offshore drilling operation. In those days Texas was controlled by Establishment Democrats like Lyndon B. Johnson and John Connally; Republicans were an inconsequential sect. Starting as the Harris County Republican chairman, Bush built from scratch and was locally credited, along with Sen. John Tower, with starting the state’s GOP political turnaround.

With an abortive stab at Sen. Ralph Yarborough’s seat in 1964 frustrated by L.B.J.’s rout of Barry Goldwater, Bush started his own public career with his 1966 election in the newly created 7th Congressional District. At that time a significant portion of the now-conservative 7th included the inner-city black constituency now in the 18th District, originally represented by Barbara Jordan and currently by Mickey Leland. Bush campaigned in his mixed constituency enthusiastically.

In office, Bush early cast the congressional vote most criticized at that time by conservative allies. After a trip to Vietnam in 1967, he voted for the Fair Housing Act on the ground that black American soldiers were entitled to open housing.

Pollsters are as bewildered as experts in defining authenticity. Awaiting the definition of history, the interim answer for George Bush is that he does, after all, possess the electability factor. The experts would do well not to underestimate that.