Rolling Pennies in the Dark by Douglas MacKinnon

Author:Douglas MacKinnon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

28

A Campaign Door Leads to the White House

In the mid-1980s, a gentleman by the name of Andrew H. Card Jr. was working in the White House as a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. Andy’s turf was governors.

It was his job to keep the nation’s governors informed as to what the president was up to and to take any issues or complaints they might have back to the White House. Andy was well qualified for the job for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he had run for governor of Massachusetts as a state delegate.

Since Andy was from Massachusetts and a Republican, it is probably no surprise that we knew each other. Back then, you could have fit most of the Massachusetts Republican Party in a rowboat and still have had plenty of room for the cast of Gilligan’s Island.

At one point around that time when I had come to the Reagan White House for a meeting on the space program—I had parlayed my childhood passion for human spaceflight into an understanding of the pros and cons of our space program, which enabled me to author a number of columns and articles on the subject, hence my invitation to the White House—I stopped by Andy’s office to catch up. Andy’s idea of catching up was to give me a quiz about Vice President George H. W. Bush. In retrospect, I have come to realize that Andy was giving me a loyalty test. I just wasn’t bright enough to figure it out at the time.

After getting talk of the Red Sox and Bruins out of the way, Andy came right to the point.

“Doug.” He smiled. “What do you think of Vice President Bush? And by that, I mean what do you really think of him? Do you think he has what it takes to be president of the United States, and would you support him?”

Little did I know that Andy was already like a son to Vice President Bush. Even though he worked for Ronald Reagan, Andy’s first loyalty was to the vice president and his coming campaign.

The fact was, I did think well of Vice President Bush. Even though his world of wealth, titles, and connections was light-years removed from my life, I knew he had fought bravely for his country, tried to establish his own identity, and had lost a four-year-old daughter to disease. Rich or poor, God and life have a way of deciding how much pain and suffering to send your way, and both had sent some to Vice President Bush and his family.

I told Andy I thought the vice president was a good man and that I would be interested in helping out on his campaign if the right opportunity arose. Andy nodded his head, smiled, and told me he would be in touch. Of course, if I had given the wrong answer about Vice President Bush, then friends or not, Andy would have stuck me on the next yak to Siberia.

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