Bush Camp’s ‘Iron Triangle’ Steels for a Changing Fight

They’re known as the “Iron Triangle”: George W. Bush’s very tight, very loyal and, until recently, very successful trio of top advisors.

The best thing about the troika is a discipline so steely it could make an Olympic athlete flinch. And the worst? Quite possibly that same single-mindedness, a trait that has kept them hewing to a single strategy through a changing campaign: Run against President Clinton, and Al Gore will lose.

Even this week, as the Republican nominee for president has begun shifting from direct attacks on Gore to a greater focus on issues, character remains central. Issues, said one campaign insider, now will be used to highlight what the Republicans call the duplicity of Bush’s Democratic rival.

When the race is going their way, the trio’s certitude and discipline serve Bush well. But when the campaign changes for the worse--as it has in recent weeks--the line between discipline and inflexibility blurs.

In good times, no leaks come out of the Bush campaign. No internal disputes become public. Nothing distracts from their resolute strategy for putting the Texas governor in the White House. Communications director Karen Hughes stays on message: Bush is good, Gore is bad. Chief strategist Karl Rove stays on plan: Character, character, character. Campaign manager Joe Allbaugh stays on budget and on top of every detail.

In bad times, the second-guessing, particularly from Washington, begins: Does the Austin, Texas-based campaign crew have what it takes to win a national election, having never tried before? How could they have so badly bungled their debate strategy? Why don’t they listen to experienced outsiders more? Why didn’t they shift gears sooner, when Gore started coming on strong?

Unflappable, jovial even, Rove radiates confidence; he is buoyed by Bush’s unwavering support. “Been through this drill, been through this drill,” he said, fairly chortling, in a reference to the black days after Bush’s landslide loss to Arizona Sen. John McCain in the New Hampshire primary. Rove knew the race would tighten, he insisted: “I’m prescient.”

But after seeing Bush’s double-digit advantage evaporate almost overnight, others in the party are far less sanguine. “The dynamic of the race has changed,” said one GOP strategist who occasionally advises the Bush campaign and frets about the overconfidence in Austin.

“Clearly, the predicate for the Bush strategy was that Clinton fatigue--and presumably Gore fatigue--would precipitate the American electorate to want change for the sake of change,” he said.

At this point, Bush is running against “a different Al Gore” from the one who existed in the minds of voters just a few weeks ago, one campaign strategist said. Voters “don’t think [Gore] is a stiff anymore. . . . They think he knows what he’s doing. They think he has a plan.

“The real question we have to answer is how we justify change,” he said. “And that’s a different question than we had to answer six weeks ago.”

Still, Bush and his close cadre have stuck to their strategy, though even some campaign insiders are beginning to question the wisdom, and Republican strategists look at the campaign and fairly beg for changes: Attack Gore on social issues. Bring in new players. Get mean.

Those in Austin, one GOP veteran said, “don’t know how to create an issue, an agenda. They think they’re above it. Restoring honesty and dignity takes you [only] so far. It wears off.”

The architect of the Bush strategy is Rove, a 49-year-old history buff and college dropout. He has known the candidate since the early 1970s and worked on Bush’s losing 1978 race for Congress and both of his winning gubernatorial campaigns. He is so loyal, he sold a profitable consulting business to focus solely on Bush’s White House run.

With a boyish face and a bad-boy swagger, Rove is the one who gives the candidate the bad news and the good: “Early exit polls say you’re losing”; or, “You’re up 10 points!” And then he parses the race for reporters. He is driven and focused. Those who don’t like him call him ruthless; those who do like him use a more polite description: control freak.

Rove has toiled in Texas politics for the last 20 years, as the state went from solidly Democratic to largely Republican. “He was the guy at the forefront driving that train,” said Chuck McDonald, who served as Texas Gov. Ann Richards’ communications director when the Democrat lost her 1994 reelection bid to Bush.

If Rove has a weakness, critics say, it’s being a bit too convinced of his own cleverness. Metaphorically speaking, he will construct a notion of reality, build a house to fit and then hunker down, even if the ground shifts, one fellow Republican strategist said. Now that the ground has shifted in the presidential campaign, many see that as a major problem with Bush’s strategy.

“The goal was to blur the ideological and issue differences in hopes this race would turn on personal qualities and who the voters liked better,” said the strategist, an occasional advisor. “To the surprise of probably both campaigns, Gore caught up with Bush on personal qualities in record time. They’ve made assumptions about the race that are now turned upside down.”

For his part, Rove insists he was right all along, that he never thought Bush’s early lead in the polls would hold. Changed reality? Nonsense.

Quietly, however, Bush is undertaking a subtle shift. In the coming weeks, the campaign plans to link this character focus to a more issues-based strategy. A case in point, spokesman Ari Fleischer said, is highlighting Gore’s “Hollywood posturing” in attacking the entertainment industry’s morals while at the same time raising money at glitzy celebrity fund-raisers.

Health care is another example: Gore “is fighting [health management organizations] but his health care plan puts you in an HMO,” the campaign insider said. Bush will be “pointing to new policies and reminding [voters that Gore’s] still doing it, still misleading you.”

If Rove is the campaign’s spine, Karen Hughes is its public face. There she was Tuesday--the high priestess of staying on message--striding to the back of Bush’s campaign plane ready for battle, armed with a cheese tray and an iron will.

“Of all the cheesy stories I’ve dealt with in a long career, this has to be among the most bizarre,” Hughes said, referring to the controversy concerning the fleeting display of the word “rats” in one of the GOP’s anti-Gore ads. “At the risk of mixing rodent metaphors, I’d say the Democrats are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

It was just another day at the constantly moving, transcontinental office for Hughes. Some days are tougher than others. Tuesday was a hard one. Labor Day, when the governor called a reporter a vulgarity in range of an open microphone, was another.

A former Texas television reporter, Hughes was hired by the state GOP “to bang on Ann Richards’ head all day every day in ‘92,” McDonald said. “She was pretty good at that.”

Hughes went to work for Bush in 1994 and has been with him ever since. These days she almost always is at his side--protective, at times brusque, even physically imposing. Bush “has total confidence in her in terms of her strategic thinking on a communications level,” said one Republican who has worked with both. “Her importance and her ties to him have steadily grown.”

When Bush lost the New Hampshire primary in February, Hughes came up with the slogan that defined the comeback effort: “Reformer With Results.” And as the campaign shifts gears again, Hughes also masterminded--with the help of a press aide--the retooled slogan unveiled last week: “Real Plans for Real People.”

When Mike Gerson, Bush’s lead speech writer, wants to know how the candidate sounds--whether the lines he writes could actually come from the Texas governor’s lips--it is Hughes he turns to. Bill Miller, an Austin political consultant who has worked for Democrats and Republicans, describes Hughes as “the dead center of the campaign.”

“She is the perfect reflection of the candidate,” Miller said. “She understands him to a T. It’s a psychic bond. . . . She’s in his skin. Bush knows she is, respects it and counts on it.”

Although Bush added spokesman Ed Gillespie, a Beltway veteran, to his Austin press staff on Wednesday, the campaign insists that the hire is not any sort of remedial move. In fact, Gillespie will report to Hughes.

Allbaugh, 48, is probably the biggest mystery of the trio. At 6 feet 4, he towers over candidate and campaign alike with his trademark flattop and equally no-nonsense control of spending and staffing.

He entered politics when he volunteered to work for a 1968 congressional race in his native Oklahoma and has worked on campaigns ever since. He managed Bush’s first race for governor in 1994 and later became the governor’s chief of staff.

No job is too big for the campaign’s big man; he currently is in Washington with campaign chairman Donald Evans helping to negotiate details of next month’s debates and did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article. At the same time, no detail is too small: When country singer Travis Tritt bailed on a New Hampshire event, Allbaugh got the Bellamy Brothers to fill in at the last minute.

“Joe’s a very good and fair administrator,” Hughes said. “He describes his role as keeping the trains running on time and being the enforcer of the governor’s will.”

The media-shy Allbaugh most often is described as fiercely faithful and agenda-free. He is “very loyal, totally dedicated to George W. Bush,” one Austin insider said. “He is a good listener. He offers his advice quietly and calmly. He helps put together a game plan and then he ensures that all the I’s are dotted and the Ts are crossed.”

While there is palpable nervousness in Republican circles about the Austin crew’s ability to get Bush back on track, some GOP veterans deride such concerns as “predictable,” motivated by “jealousy” and the candidate’s shifting fortunes.

Tom Rath, a strategist who works with the Bush campaign in New Hampshire, said he envisions no change in the Iron Triangle. The trio is unswervingly loyal to Bush, Rath said, and the candidate likely will return the favor.

“You don’t change this thing eight weeks out,” Rath said. And besides: “These guys have been right more than they’ve been wrong.”

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Times staff writers Michael Finnegan, James Gerstenzang, Edwin Chen and Megan Garvey contributed to this story.

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DEBATE TALKS

Negotiators for Bush and Gore could not agree on formats for the October debates. A10

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The Iron Triangle

Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush has surrounded himself with three longtime aides, each of whom contributes different talents to the running of his campaign.

THE ENFORCER

Joe Allbaugh

* First worked for Bush during his 1994 gubernatorial campaign, joined him as chief of staff in 1995

n In 32 years in politics,

has worked on campaigns in 39 states

* Stands 6 feet 4, weighs 275 pounds and wears his hair in a flattop

* Bush calls him “Big Stick”

THE STRATEGIST

Karl Rove

* Ran Bush’s two campaigns for governor in Texas

* Met Bush in early 1970s, while working at the Republican National Committee for Bush’s father

* Once led the College Republicans and attended four colleges, but never earned a degree

* Fascinated by history and political theory

THE COMMUNICATOR

Karen Hughes

* Has worked with Bush since his first gubernatorial campaign

* Helped write Bush’s autobiography

* Former TV reporter in Dallas

* Father was the last American military governor of the Panama Canal Zone

* Schools her 13-year-old son on the trail

Compiled by MASSIE RITSCH