The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty by Kitty Kelley

Author:Kitty Kelley [Kelley, Kitty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Political, Fiction
ISBN: 9780385514057
Google: sQSvBYR0xKUC
Amazon: 0385503245
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2004-09-13T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

George Herbert Walker Bush wanted the White House more than anything else in the world. “I mean, like, hasn’t, uh, everybody dreamed about becoming President someday?” he asked a reporter from Women’s Wear Daily. He had no strong purpose other than his burning desire to become President of the United States. By 1979 he had come to feel he was entitled to the honor, and his wife agreed. So they decided to dedicate themselves to the pursuit. Barbara took her Christmas card list, now up to eighty-five hundred names, and George took his Rolodex from the Republican National Committee, and both hit the road in opposite directions. They rarely saw each other for the next year. George was determined to follow Jimmy Carter’s strategy and make himself a household name by winning the first two important primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire. From there, George figured, if he spent every waking hour campaigning, everything else would come his way.

On the road, he was accompanied by one of two aides, either Jeb’s young friend David “Batesy” Bates or Cody Shearer, whose mother had grown up across the street from Barbara in Rye, New York.

“Batesy and I were like his adopted sons,” said Cody Shearer. “We jogged with the old man, played tennis with him, and carried his briefcase from city to city on that campaign.”

In his sprint toward the White House, George raised and spent $22 million ($49.7 million in 2004). He traveled 329 days in one year—1978–79—and covered more than 246,000 miles in forty-two states. He campaigned with indefatigable energy.

“I have covered a lot of political candidates during the last twenty-five years,” Roy Reed wrote in The New York Times, “but I have never known one—not even Hubert Humphrey—who ran with more zeal and determination.”

“Oh, God, George went at it nonstop,” recalled Shearer. “He set a pulverizing pace. Sometimes we would hit three or four cities in one day. Of course, we concentrated on New Hampshire and Iowa. That was the strategy: win those two—win the nomination. That’s how George was programmed. He spent 1978 traveling to put his organization in place and 1979 traveling to campaign . . . I remember we were in a hotel somewhere. His room was next to mine and there were a bunch of girls in the room on the other side of me raising hell, dancing, pounding the walls, and playing loud music. Around midnight I hear George get up and rip open his door. So I get up to see what’s happening. George is standing there in his monogrammed pajamas. He bangs on the girls’ door and tells them to pipe down. He’s trying to sleep. The girls, of course, don’t know who he is. I suggest maybe we join the fun. ‘No. No. No,’ George says. ‘Gotta stay focused. Gotta stay focused. Gotta get up early. Gotta shake hands.’ Then he pads back to his room in his monogrammed pj’s.”

Bush’s breathless pace winded even reporters.

“How long are you going to stay out campaigning?” one of them asked.

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