What It Took

(5 of 11)

Besides, Gore had just finished his three-week "Prosperity and Progress" tour to poor reviews by the media. The only big headlines he seemed to generate came when he criticized the oil companies over a recent spike in prices. In this atmosphere of paralysis, all the old infighting was back. Many in the campaign blamed the inertia on pollster Harrison Hickman, who had been brought in to replace Mark Penn. But Eskew, Shrum and Devine, the high-priced ad guys, weren't helping either: the $30 million of Democratic National Committee money they had spent on ads weren't budging Gore's poll numbers in any of the states that mattered.

The surest sign that there was blood in the water was the fact that all the exiled outsiders were hovering again. Penn was sending memos over the transom urging Gore to run on Clinton's economic success. The argument (one in which many thought they saw Clinton's hand) went like this: prosperity had not happened by chance; it took hard choices and courage; now we're seeing the benefits, but even the most glorious economy is fragile. Does the country really want to put that in Bush's hands? The key to the election, Penn argued, was not waitress moms but the "wired workers," a group that has benefited mightily from the Clinton years.

Shrum, Carter and Devine thanked Penn and read his memos, but didn't follow up. "That was not the route we were going down," a Gore strategist said.

Throughout the fall, most folks in the Clinton White House thought the populism jag was a huge mistake. Newly hired deputy campaign chairman Mark Fabiani--himself a refugee from Clinton's White House--was uncomfortable with the new tone. Fabiani warned that it still left the campaign without the thing it needed most: a one-sentence description of what was at stake in the race, something that had the power to counter Bush's attacks that Gore would say anything to get elected. He feared that the elitist media would hate this populist tone. And he argued that Gore should hit Bush's competence--does he have what it takes?--more directly. But he was overruled.

Poolside with Jeb
The Bush clan gathers every summer for fun and games in Kennebunkport, Maine, but this summer something special was up. The old man had invited everyone in his massive Rolodex to celebrate the Silver Fox's 75th birthday. It was all hush-hush, the old social secretaries and helpers and lickers and stampers, some of the old Bush gals and the hangers on, and of course folks like Jim Baker and his wife. They stayed all over the old fishing resort--at the point itself and at the Shawmut in town, and some bunked secretly with friends. And sure, they were coming to fete Barbara and all that she had created, but that's not what they came to see.

What they really wanted to know was how the man they still called Junior, the guy who for all those years George and Bar had fretted about, the one everyone thought wouldn't amount to much of anything, was conducting himself now that he was on the verge of taking back what his father had lost eight years before. Would he be wild and unsaddled, as always, smoking Marlboros in the dining room, Mr. Cock of the Walk, or would something else have settled in him, taken him to a different place? After all, he was going to be President soon, right?

There were the usual family high jinks: speedboating, bluefishing, tennis matches, horseshoes--let the games begin!--people riding around the Point on those fat-tired old bikes. The kids put on some hysterical skits one night at the Kennebunk River Club down the road. The old man dressed up as Carnac the Magician, and he and his sidekick Marlin Fitzwater reprised their favorite routines. Dubya's old friend Brad Freeman dressed up in a white wig and a dowdy blue dress and pretended to be Barbara. George's younger brother Marvin made fun of everyone, but the old ringleader himself, the guy who normally hammed it up the most, well, he just couldn't be found.

Bush kept to himself, stayed on the phone, worked on his speech, practiced for the debates. Everyone was whispering about it; some couldn't quite believe it; but everyone was a little relieved, a little proud; and everyone knew the real score. "He couldn't act out too much," said someone who was there. "His mom would have killed him."

The eldest Bush son couldn't resist at least one gag. Neil Bush, the former President's sweetest son by far, is also the most naive about politics. Neil was the one who got badly tangled up with some crooked Colorado bankers 10 years ago and never knew what hit him. One afternoon, out by the pool, Dubya and Jeb walked out, saw Neil and began talking loudly about a long list of crazy, outrageous things that just had to be in the convention speech. Pile 'em on, said Dubya. Let's do it, said Jeb, both men pretending to sound like political terrorists rather than the caretakers of a party and its future.

Listening to his big brothers, the Governors of two of the four largest states, Neil looked alarmed and warned, "Guys, you can't say that stuff. You just can't."

The two Governors just looked at their brother and smiled.