'Work Hard, Study...and Keep Out of Politics!' by James A. Baker

Author:James A. Baker [Baker, James Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2006-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

IF TWO other presidents—Nixon and Reagan—had had their way, I might not have been able to help George make his run for the presidency against the Democrats’ Michael Dukakis in 1988. A history refresher first.

George’s path to the White House started with the ’88 Republican primaries. Although he was a two-term vice president and the clear front-runner, seven candidates lined up against him—Bob Dole, Jack Kemp, Pat Robertson, Howard Baker, Al Haig, Don Rumsfeld, and Pierre “Pete” du Pont. The race did not begin well. George finished third in the Iowa caucuses. No surprise that Dole won. He was from neighboring Kansas and, as Senate majority leader, was good at delivering for Midwest farmers. But few expected televangelist Pat Robertson to take second place. He did a good job of getting his supporters to the Iowa caucuses.

The flight from Iowa to New Hampshire, the first primary state, was glum, but George kept his composure, campaigned hard, and regained momentum by winning there, just as Ronald Reagan had done eight years earlier. George then won sixteen out of sixteen primaries on Super Tuesday, March 8. That sewed it up.

Former New Jersey senator Nick Brady chaired the Bush effort. Lee Atwater was campaign manager. George’s chief of staff, Craig Fuller, pollster Bob Teeter, finance chairman Bob Mosbacher, and media expert Roger Ailes were also members of the brain trust. Within the campaign, they were called the “Gang of Six,” or “G-6.” I watched it all from the sidelines at Treasury. Every once in a while I was asked to contribute my two cents’ worth to the campaign. Generally, however, I tended to my knitting at Treasury and George and the G-6 tended to the campaign.

Because of my long friendship with George and my experience in running presidential campaigns (including his in 1979-1980), conventional wisdom was that I would resign from Treasury before the party convention in mid-August to run the fall general election campaign. But Richard Nixon thought that was a bad idea. On May 15, the former president said in a letter to George that it “would be a serious mistake” for Baker to “take a leave of absence” and join the campaign. “The an-tis in the media would take it as a lack of confidence in your ability to win and too much deference to Reagan,” Nixon advised George.

Interesting. Having entered the Reagan administration with the reputation of being the vice president’s man, I was now seen, at least by the politically savvy Nixon, as the president’s guy.

George had obviously asked Nixon for his opinion about my taking on the fall campaign. Nixon’s reference in his letter to a “leave of absence” reflected perhaps how much things had changed after Watergate. By 1988, no cabinet official could just take a leave, as opposed to resigning from government, to run the presidential campaign of another cabinet or constitutional officer. Even if a way could have been found to do it legally, a leave of absence would have given the Democrats a political club.

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