41: A Portrait of My Father

by George W. Bush

  Finally, he described his character. Dad had always been reticent to talk about himself, but in a short and self-deprecating passage, he struck just the right tone. “I may not be the most eloquent, but I learned early that eloquence won’t draw oil from the ground. I may sometimes be a little awkward, but there’s nothing self-conscious in my love of country. I am a quiet man—but I hear the quiet people others don’t. The ones who raise the family, pay the taxes, meet the mortgage. I hear them and I am moved, and their concerns are mine.”

  He built to his conclusion: “I will keep America moving forward, always forward—for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light. That is my mission. And I will complete it.”

  The crowd exploded. Laura, Barbara, Jenna, and I poured onto the stage with the rest of our family to join Mother and Dad for the balloon drop (no fear of a condom drop this time). George Bush was beaming. I can’t remember another speech that so perfectly captured a moment. Dad had moved seamlessly from Ronald Reagan’s Vice President to a candidate in his own right. Like many others who care deeply for George Bush, I was exuberant that night.

  Years later, as I worked on my 2000 convention acceptance speech with my speechwriter Mike Gerson, I thought back to Dad’s speech in 1988. One of the lessons was that a candidate must not only deliver memorable lines but also lay out a vision that the American people want to follow. That was what George Bush did in 1988. After that final night of the convention, I was convinced that many Americans could picture President George H.W. Bush.

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  DAD’S PERFORMANCE at the convention was flawless, with one exception: the announcement of his running mate.

  Dad began the vice presidential search shortly after he secured the nomination. Unlike many presidential nominees, he was not looking for someone who could fill a hole in his résumé—the way that he had for Ronald Reagan eight years earlier and Dick Cheney, with his national security experience, did for me twelve years later. In addition to picking someone who was prepared to assume the presidency, Dad wanted to bridge a generational gap. Although he was an energetic sixty-four-year-old, he was also part of the World War II generation, which had held the presidency since John F. Kennedy’s election almost three decades earlier. Dad sensed that the baby boom generation was ready for its turn on the national stage. He liked the idea of picking a running mate who could appeal to younger voters and help pave the way for a new generation of Republican leaders. There was a historical precedent that influenced Dad: In 1952, the sixty-one-year-old Dwight Eisenhower—a President whom Dad greatly admired—picked a thirty-nine-year-old Senator, Richard Nixon, to be his running mate.

  Dad selected forty-one-year-old Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana to be his running mate. He had gotten to know Quayle during their years together in Washington, where Quayle had served since winning election to the House at age twenty-nine. Four years later, he had defeated three-term Democratic Senator Birch Bayh, and he had won reelection to a second Senate term handily. He had impressed his colleagues enough to earn seats on the powerful Budget and Armed Services Committees, where he gained expertise in arms control and strongly opposed Democratic efforts to cut defense spending. Dad believed that his experience had prepared him to do the job. And he knew he would be an energetic campaigner for the ticket.

  Dad kept his choice secret—from the press, from his aides, and even from Mother and me. The campaign’s plan was to build drama and announce the vice presidential pick on Wednesday of convention week, the day before Dad’s acceptance speech. By Tuesday morning, however, the speculation about the VP selection had reached a fever pitch. Stories about Dad’s decision process overwhelmed all else at the convention. Reporters constantly hounded Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, two names on the so-called short list. Dad felt bad that he had put Dole and Kemp in an uncomfortable position. So he decided to change the plan and announce his choice of Quayle on Tuesday afternoon, a day ahead of schedule.

  Dad asked me to be in the room with him when he called Dan to make the offer. We were aboard the riverboat Natchez, which was about to ferry a large group of family, campaign aides, and supporters from Algiers Point across the Mississippi River to a dockside arrival rally in Spanish Plaza. Dad and Quayle spoke briefly, Quayle accepted the offer, and Dad handed the phone to Jim Baker. There was not much time for chitchat. Baker crisply told Quayle to get to the docks for the rally, where Dad would call him onto the stage for the announcement. The Senator would then get into a Secret Service limousine and be driven to meet his speechwriters, so that he could start work on an acceptance speech that he would deliver to a national audience.

  The riverboat crossed the Mississippi, and Dad was ready to make the announcement at the rally. There was one problem. Quayle was nowhere to be found. He and his wife, Marilyn, were still making their way to the docks. Eventually the Senator was spotted, and Dad shocked the crowd by introducing Quayle as his running mate. I thought about what must have been going through Dan Quayle’s mind as he bounded up onto the platform. He was a year younger than me, and just a few hours earlier he’d had no idea that he was about to step onto the center of the national stage.

  The spotlight quickly turned harsh. Reporters raised questions about Quayle’s service in the National Guard during Vietnam. The campaign had vetted the nominee and concluded that there was no cause for concern. In retrospect, because Dad had kept the choice secret, neither Quayle nor campaign staffers had time to prepare for the barrage of detailed questions being fired at them.

  In the hothouse atmosphere of the convention, the press frenzy about Quayle’s background escalated into a crisis. The coverage got so rough that some supporters called for Dad to dump Quayle and pick a new running mate. George Bush didn’t consider the idea. He knew it would be a disaster to concede that his first major decision as the party’s nominee had been a mistake. He was right. The crisis passed after Dan Quayle’s solid performance in his speech and Dad’s stellar acceptance speech on the final night. The convention gave the Bush-Quayle ticket one of the biggest bounces in American political history. They came out with a small lead. And I came away with a valuable insight. When I had to announce my own vice presidential selection, I did so in advance of the convention.

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  AT THE CONVENTION, George Bush had defined himself. Down the stretch, he defined Michael Dukakis. The Massachusetts Governor had left the door open by declaring in his convention speech, “This election isn’t about ideology, it’s about competence.” It was laughable that Dukakis would claim to be more competent than George Bush, who had held more important government jobs than any presidential candidate in recent memory. On top of that, two decades in national politics had convinced Dad that voters base their decisions on values as much as any other factor. And he knew that the values of Michael Dukakis would not sit well with many Americans.

  Throughout the fall, Dad labeled Dukakis a “Massachusetts liberal” and quoted his opponent’s declaration that he was “a card-carrying member of the ACLU.” He reminded the country that Dukakis had opposed prayer in public schools and vetoed a bill that would have required Massachusetts schools to begin each morning with the Pledge of Allegiance. “We are one nation under God,” Dad would say in his stump speech, “and we ought not be inhibited from saying the Pledge of Allegiance in the schools.” We knew the line of attack was working when Dukakis started saying the pledge at his campaign events.

  The issue of crime produced another contrast. Governor Dukakis had supported gun control, a stance that concerned many Americans who believed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for hunting, sports, and personal protection. He opposed the death penalty, a position that put him at odds with a majority of the population. And in the most notorious decision of his gubernatorial career, Dukakis had supported a program that granted weekend furloughs to Massachusetts prisoners, including violent offenders.

  George Bush was not the first to criticize t
he furlough program. Senator Al Gore had attacked Dukakis on the issue during a Democratic primary debate. As Gore noted, eleven of the prisoners who had been furloughed had turned into fugitives, and two had committed murder while out on release.

  One notorious Massachusetts prisoner was Willie Horton, who used his furlough to flee to Maryland and rape a woman. In late September, an independent organization called Americans for Bush highlighted the story in an ad that featured a photo of Horton. Critics charged that Dad was appealing to racist impulses, since Horton was African-American. Dad’s campaign had nothing to do with that ad. As a matter of fact, it infuriated George Bush. He would never play the race card. He had run ads criticizing the furlough program, which was a legitimate policy issue, but he had never shown a photo of Horton or otherwise alluded to Horton’s race. In retrospect, the Horton controversy was a harbinger of a new political phenomenon: independent groups trying to influence elections.

  Dad’s campaign on values—combined with his strong leadership experience and solid record—resonated with voters and helped him pull away from Dukakis. Michael Dukakis helped as well. He tried to defend his national security credentials by riding in an Army tank. His helmet was too big, and he looked more goofy than presidential.

  As in most election years, the marquee events of the 1988 campaign were the presidential debates. The first debate was held in North Carolina in late September. For me, the most memorable moment happened during the preparation for the debate. Dad had invited Barbara and Jenna to spend the night at the Naval Observatory. At some point during the night, six-year-old Barbara discovered that she was missing her beloved stuffed dog, Spikey. She informed her grandfather that she could not sleep without Spikey. An intensive search of the house and yard ensued, led by Gampy himself. I don’t know what Michael Dukakis was doing before the debate, but I doubt he was looking for a stuffed animal with a flashlight. Fortunately, Spikey was recovered unharmed, and most observers scored the debate as a draw.

  The anticipation was great for the second and final presidential debate, which was held in Los Angeles. With just a few weeks before the election, the debate marked the last opportunity for either candidate to score points in front of a national audience. I did not attend that debate—or any of Dad’s debates. I was too nervous. To calm our nerves, my brother Marvin and I decided to go to a Woody Allen movie. I can’t remember the name of it, but I do remember Marvin using the pay phone in the lobby to check in with his good friend, known as PQ, to see how the debate was going. Marvin returned with the news that Dad was off to a good start. Another twenty minutes passed, and Marvin headed back to the lobby for another update. Once again the news was positive. After a third reassuring report from PQ, we left the theater and made it home right after the debate ended. A few minutes later, the phone rang.

  “How’d I do, son?” Dad asked.

  Without a moment of hesitation, I said, “Dad, you hit a home run.”

  I was more right than I realized. Like most debates, this one would be remembered for a single moment. It came on the first question of the night. The moderator, Bernard Shaw of CNN, opened by asking Dukakis: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”

  The horrifying image must have shocked most viewers, but the Governor responded as if he’d just been asked a question about the weather. “No, I don’t, Bernard. And I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life,” he said. He went on to explain his policy rationale without once mentioning the prospect of his wife’s rape and murder.

  Dukakis’s answer hurt him because it reinforced a perception among the electorate that the Governor was a cold technocrat. Dad’s response was visceral. He said that he supported the death penalty for crimes that are “so heinous, so brutal, so outrageous.”

  Bernie Shaw did not let Dad off the hook easily. In his first question to Dad, he asked for his reaction to the possibility that he would get elected and die before the inauguration, leaving Dan Quayle to take office. The question was prompted by the most memorable line in the vice presidential debate a week earlier. When Quayle noted that he had spent as many years in Congress as John F. Kennedy had, Lloyd Bentsen snapped, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” Bentsen’s retort crystallized the view of some critics that Quayle was unprepared to serve as President.

  Dad responded that he had confidence in his running mate’s experience and ability. He also said that he had “never seen a presidential campaign where the presidential nominee runs against [the] vice presidential nominee.” Dad understood a truism in American politics: People vote for President, not Vice President. Just as George Bush did not win any elections for Ronald Reagan and Geraldine Ferraro could not win an election for Walter Mondale, Lloyd Bentsen would not win the election for Michael Dukakis. When the new polls came out a few days after the final presidential debate, the Bush-Quayle ticket had a seventeen-point advantage.

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  ALTHOUGH HE HELD a solid lead, Dad refused to take anything for granted. After all, only two months earlier he had been trailing by double digits. He barnstormed across the country in the final weeks. I traveled with him on some of those trips, which brought back memories of our bus rides across Texas in 1964, when he was a first-time candidate and I was an eighteen-year-old kid. A lot had changed in the twenty-four years since then, but one thing remained the same: Dad loved spending time with his family.

  One of my favorite memories of the 1988 campaign came when Dad invited Barbara, Jenna, and Laura to join him for a train trip through the Midwest around Halloween. The gesture was thoughtful; he knew they would have fun, and he enjoyed having his grandchildren around. On the flight back to Washington, Barbara and Jenna donned their Halloween costumes. I still smile at the images of our daughters, dressed as a vampire and a Juicy Fruit gum pack, walking down the aisles of Air Force Two trick-or-treating the national press corps.

  Dad’s 1988 campaign was the first one in which I had been involved from beginning to end. I had learned a lot along the way—about the political process, and about my father’s character. Amid all the second-guessing that naturally takes place when a candidate’s campaign is in peril, George Bush had remained calm and steady. He stayed focused on his long-term strategy, not the daily tracking polls. Although plenty of people doubted his chances, he remained upbeat and never wavered in his belief that he would win. Even today, I still look back with admiration at the energy, discipline, and sense of timing that he showed throughout the 1988 campaign.

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  ELECTION DAY FINALLY arrived on November 8, 1988. Dad was exhausted but optimistic. Our extended family gathered to watch the returns at the Houstonian Hotel. When New Jersey and Ohio came out in Dad’s column, we knew the race was over. He went on to carry forty of the fifty states, including some that no Republican has won since: California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Michael Dukakis waited for the polls to close on the West Coast and then called to graciously concede.

  After a brief celebration with family and campaign aides, Dad went to deliver his victory speech. Mother was at his side, and our whole family stood behind them. Forty years earlier, he, Mother, and I had moved out to a little house in West Texas, having no idea what the future would hold. The path from that day had not been easy for George Bush. He had chosen a career in politics as a Republican in a Democratic state. He had lost as many elections as he had won. He had lived under the shadows of the Van Buren factor and Iran-Contra. Through it all, he refused to give up. He kept working, kept running, kept striving to do his best. And now, after one of the great public service careers of the twentieth century, he had the job he wanted more than any other. George Herbert Walker Bush was going to be the forty-first President of the United States.

  In 1974, President Ford named George Bush as America’s representative t
o China. Dad recognized that China, like West Texas, represented an exciting frontier. Mother and Dad got around Beijing on bicycles. GBPLM

  A few hours after receiving a telegram from the White House asking Dad to return from China to run the CIA, he cabled back, “…if this is what the President wants me to do the answer is a firm YES.” President Ford offered him an office next to the West Wing, but Director Bush felt his office should be at Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. GBPLM

  Planning Dad’s first Presidential run in 1979 with his close friend and adviser James A. Baker III. Jimmy is a brilliant strategist, a skillful negotiator, and one of the best joke-tellers I have ever heard. I count him among the greatest political figures of the twentieth century. Bush Family Photo

  Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President complained that his job was “not worth a warm bucket of spit.” Fortunately, Ronald Reagan’s Vice President had a more positive experience. Dad and the President had lunch together every week, a tradition I continued with Vice President Dick Cheney. GBPLM/Cynthia Johnson

  One of my favorite memories of Dad’s 1988 Presidential campaign was when he invited our family to join him on a trip through the Midwest around Halloween. I still smile at the image of Barbara and Jenna walking down the aisles of Air Force Two trick-or-treating the national press corps. GBPLM