Accepting Loss, Bush Says He’s on ‘Long Road’ to Pennsylvania Ave.

No presidential candidate can offend a child with television cameras rolling, so George W. Bush was forced to answer the prodding of grade-school students asking what it would be like to lose.

“I wouldn’t like it for a period of time,” Bush told the children a few days ago here. “I’m a competitive guy. I work hard, but I understand that sometimes you just don’t get what you want in life.”

Tuesday was one of those sometimes. The candidate with the largely lucky life came up short in the New Hampshire primary; how he responds to this bump on the road to the Oval Office could tell America a great deal about whether he can actually get there in November.

To hear friends, allies and even onetime political foes tell it, Bush’s few failures have taught him how to fight, how to focus and how to move on. All of which was evident as the candidate conceded defeat Tuesday night. “The road to the Republican nomination and the White House is a long road,” he told his supporters. “Mine will go through all 50 states. And I intend it to end at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”

Governor’s Relatively Easy Life

Until this week, life has been relatively easy for the Texas governor with the famous name. He was anointed seemingly overnight as the Republican establishment’s golden child. Campaign money gushed in, and well-known rivals dropped out of the GOP race even before the first votes were cast.

He had not encountered many hurdles before: a failed run for Congress in 1978; a struggling oil business in the 1980s; part ownership of a baseball team that never won the World Series, despite his annual promises it would do so; a difficult tax-cut battle with the Texas Legislature in 1997.

Don Evans, close friend and campaign finance chairman, figures Bush will handle this loss to rival John McCain much the same way he handled the others, by moving on and concentrating on the long-term goal ahead: in this case, the White House.

“In the oil and gas industry we drilled two dry holes together,” Evans recalled. “You forget about ‘em the next day, go on to the next project. He was quick to forget about his loss in 1978. He was quick to forget about his disappointments of not winning the World Series--ever--when he was the owner of the Texas Rangers.”

George Shipley, a consultant to former Gov. Ann Richards, the Democrat Bush defeated in 1994, predicts the Republican won’t be outwardly shaken by Tuesday’s loss.

“Publicly, he’ll be very graceful,” predicts Shipley. “The Bush operation is pretty well mechanized, in good shape. It’s pretty seamless. You won’t see any external signs.”

But, he added, “internally, it’ll be brutal” as the Bush camp tries to figure out what went wrong and fix it.

It is the rare stump speech in which Bush does not bring up his 1978 loss for a House seat in west Texas. Campaigning through the early primary states, he invariably trots it out, his own personal cautionary tale:

“I came in second in a two-person race.” A pause, a grin. “That means last. And a lady walked up to me and she said, ‘George W., I did not vote for you.’ I said, ‘Gosh, I’m sorry, why not?’ And she said, ‘Because you didn’t bother to ask for my vote.’

“It’s a pretty important political lesson,” he continues, making the pitch to anyone who will listen. “Today I am here to ask for the vote.”

Bush lost the race for the open seat to Democrat Kent Hance. Late on election night, Bush called up, gracious, and told Hance, “You beat me, ol’ boy.”

Hance has since switched to the GOP and serves as a Pioneer, one of Bush’s inner circle of fund-raisers who have pledged to bring in $100,000 each for the presidential campaign. Hance recalls Bush as a candidate who bristled on occasion during their House contest, “who could get a little upset, but he didn’t lose his cool.”

Hance added: “He’s very competitive. He’s not gonna let somebody run over him.”

Bush says he learned that lesson in the House race, when a controversy developed that he believed cost him conservative votes. Hance recalled that Bush’s campaign--apparently without the candidate’s consent--had advertised in the Texas Tech University student newspaper for an event called a Bush Bash, offering “Free Beer, Meet Bush.”

Hance said: “A Church of Christ guy, who I practiced law with, sent letters to Church of Christ people saying, ‘This is not what we need, someone giving free beer to kids to get votes.’ Bush did not respond.”

Hance learned later that Bush and his aides considered counterpunching by accusing the Democrat of owning some land with a bar on it. But they decided not to because “they wanted the story to die,” Hance said.

‘I Learned I Need to Respond’

At a recent New Hampshire campaign stop, Bush pointed to that decision as his biggest political blunder. “I learned I need to respond,” he said. “I let a half-truth go unanswered. While I abhor the politics of tearing people down, I understand the need to counterpunch. And I suspect, if I’m the Republican Party nominee, I may have to be doing some of that.”

Fast forward to 1997. Bush was at the end of his first term as governor. The state had amassed a $1-billion surplus, and Bush “reached out and grabbed it,” said state Rep. Paul Sadler, a Democrat. “He said, ‘I want to do $1 billion in tax relief.’ ”

Bush also had to grapple with changing the funding system for Texas schools. At the time, money for public education came mostly from property taxes, which not only benefited schools in wealthier areas but left homeowners in poorer areas with a large tax bill to pay for basic student needs. In the early 1990s, state courts threatened to close schools until a more equitable system was devised.

Bush started out by proposing an additional tax on Texas businesses and an increase in the sales tax, with an ultimate goal of lowering property taxes. Sadler headed the committee that eventually shelved the plan, largely because lawmakers were worried about the impact on the state’s economy.

As an alternative, the committee proposed closing a variety of loopholes in the tax code instead, a plan Bush accepted. But the bill was blocked by Senate Republicans.

“Bush called me in,” Sadler said. “And he told me, ‘I just can’t get the votes out of the Senate.’ We talked about what we should do. I asked him who he was trying to help. He said, ‘I want to help the poorest of Texas homeowners.’ ”

Working with Sadler, Bush hatched a compromise and delivered what he refers to as the largest tax cut in the state’s history.

“When the Legislature said it didn’t like the solution, he didn’t pout and hide in the corner,” Sadler recounted. “He said, ‘Fine, give me another solution.’ He kept the dialogue between the Legislature and himself at a high level. He worked tirelessly to support our efforts.”

Now that Bush has lost a big battle in Campaign 2000, now that his armor of inevitability has been pierced, how does Sadler think he’ll react?

“I think he’ll tie his shoelaces and head to the next state,” Sadler said. “No one else has the organization to compete in every single state. It’s a 50-state race. He’s in it for every state.”