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But intense personal campaigning and superb grass-roots organization were not the whole explanation of why Bush did so well in the Iowa caucuses. He was also a fresh face, and an energetic and appealing alternative to Reagan. His victory, and his rocketing rise in the polls that followed, subjected him to an intense level of examination that caused him trouble in New Hampshire. Once a dull speaker, Bush has adopted an excitable platform manner that is not always impressive: his sentences sometimes come out in a jumble, and his hyperactive gestures occasionally appear to be out of sync with his words. He sometimes speaks in a mystifying CIA jargon; he will refer to a suit as his "gray unit" and tell audiences that the U.S. must "stay ahead of the power curve."
Bush's basic difficulty is that he is trying to be all things to all Republicans. His views on most issues are nearly as conservative as those of Reagan. He too wants to reduce federal spending programs, slash regulation of business, cut taxes in such a way as to stimulate investment, while still sharply increasing defense spending and adopting a much tougher policy toward the Soviets.
But Bush seeks to present these positions in a more moderate tone than Reagan; he would not cut taxes so deeply as Reagan would. Bush, like Reagan, is against the Panama Canal treaties, but voices concern about seeming to ally the U.S. with outdated colonialism. There is a strong case to be made for a fundamentally conservative posture that manages to recognize the complexities of the modern world—but Bush in New Hampshire did not make that case, and partly by design. He repeatedly refused to be specific. He had a budget drawn up detailing just which social programs he would cut by how much to balance tax cuts and increased defense spending, but he decided not to present it. His candid explanation: "Whatever I do will depend on whether it will help me get the nomination."
In addition, Bush got himself tagged with a charge that has proved damaging: that his background (Andover, Yale, Skull and Bones) made him a member of the Eastern liberal establishment. The accusation is unfair in view of Bush's basic conservatism, but it has hurt. Union Leader Publisher Loeb sneered at Bush as a "clean-fingernails Republican," and Senator Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire put out a large mailing asserting that Reagan was the only candidate who was not identified with the Eastern liberal "defeatist" complex. At meeting after meeting, Bush was asked whether he was a member of the Trilateral Commission (he was), a perfectly worthy and respectable group devoted to better relations among the U.S., Europe and Japan,* which ultraconservatives portray as a sinister band of plotters bent on merging the U.S. with the Soviet Union. When Reagan was asked about such quasi-Birchite charges, he did not disavow them. In fact, he said, "I hope it works." But he added piously, "I myself don't say things like that in a campaign and I'm not going to."