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NBC's Andrea Mitchell corners Baker in the Capitol Rotunda shortly before George Bush is to be sworn in as President. She wonders if Baker might himself someday be taking the oath from the Chief Justice. Baker's smile is tight and forced. "Absolutely not," he says.
"I remember one time not long ago when a group of us were sitting around and someone said again that Jimmy is the one who should be President, not George," says Phil Uzielli. "He loved it, and he let the talk go on a bit before shutting it down. If George weren't set on running, said Jimmy, well, that would be a different thing. But someday, maybe."
Someday almost assuredly. "Jimmy has a tremendous ambition and drive to reach the top," says Susan Baker. "But the presidency is the last thing in his mind right now. We don't spend a lot of time strategizing about it. Right now, he's got to be the best Secretary of State he can. The rest may come from that later."
How exactly? Baker's friends have considered probably every route. Most dismiss a return to Texas and another run for elective office. (Baker lost a 1978 race for Texas attorney general.) "That might get him the political base he needs," says Baker's son Jamie. "But it's risky. There's no reason he couldn't leave State near the end of Bush's tenure and work it from the outside."
Then there is the "Dump Quayle" strategy. "If Jerry Ford could dump Nelson Rockefeller," says a Baker friend, "why couldn't Bush dump Quayle?" Bush could, of course, but then there would be the residence problem. With both candidates from Texas, a Bush-Baker ticket might be required by the Constitution to forfeit that state's electoral votes. "And besides that," says Robert Strauss, "folks would probably find the whole thing too cute."
In fact, the Bush campaign made a similar determination last year when Robert Teeter explored the possibility of Bush's claiming Maine as his residence to run with Baker in 1988. Both Bush and Baker were reportedly intrigued, but the too-cute reasoning prevailed. And Bush has told TIME he won't change residences now that he is in the White House.
Which leaves 1996. "That could work," says Strauss. "Look, obviously being President is on his mind. He's that smart and that shrewd and that ambitious. He knows there's really only one job in Washington worth having."
"I think he first knew for sure that he could handle the job when he was at Treasury," says Jamie Baker. "Before that, he had very successfully dealt with all manner of politicians at home. Then he prevailed in a complex negotiation with some very savvy foreigners in a field he knew not too much about. To relate it to basketball, I think that's when Dad, in his own mind, realized for certain that he could play above the rim."
Jiggling his key ring, Baker is beside himself. "Dammit," he says. "Now get this down exactly as I say it. I am not interested in being President. I don't want to be President. For God's sake, in 1996 I will be 66 years old."
"That's right," says Jamie. "He's got the arithmetic right. He'll be 66 in eight years -- three years younger than Ronald Reagan was when he became President."