If you mentioned George Bush in a game of word association for political insiders just six weeks ago, the responses would have been devastating: loser, wimp, preppie, lapdog. Mention the Vice President now, and the chorus would be loud and clear: Republican nominee for President.
The eternal second banana, the man thought too timid to sculpt his own political persona, the patrician who ran a pallid third in last month's Iowa caucuses and staggered into New Hampshire facing extinction, the bland campaigner who ended one debate by apologizing for his lack of eloquence -- this consensus choice as political nebbish suddenly transformed himself into the prim reaper who could not be denied. Bush last week harvested victories from Massachusetts and Rhode Island to Oklahoma and Texas. His weakest rival, Jack Kemp, promptly quit the Republican contest. Pat Robertson, another ostensible threat on Bush's right flank, collapsed in a puddle of his failings as a candidate, finishing third even in his home state of Virginia. Though still in the race, Robertson receded into a symbolic candidacy and began talking about 1992.
Bob Dole, Bush's strongest adversary, teetered on the brink of withdrawal even as he fought for revival in this week's Illinois primary. Dole cut half his campaign staff and canceled television ads in Illinois while scrambling to broadcast a half-hour final appeal on Saturday night. A frequent adviser who ranks as politics' reigning expert on defeat and redemption, Richard Nixon, wired encouragement: MAKE ILLINOIS YOUR FINEST HOUR.
One frail hope was that Illinois voters, in a sporting mood, would choose to prolong the contest by propping up a fellow Midwesterner. Another thin reed: the possibility that indictments flowing from the Iran-contra probe would somehow slow Bush. Dole was all the more frustrated by his conviction, shared by more disinterested pols, that Bush was winning the nomination for the wrong reasons, that beneath the new veneer of strength old weaknesses festered, waiting to undermine Republican prospects in the fall. Nonetheless, Bush had finally achieved real political momentum, more substantial than his preppie and premature pronouncement in 1980 that his campaign had the "Big Mo," shortly before Reagan rolled over him in a series of primary victories.
Thanks to the Super Tuesday mechanism created by Dixie Democrats, Bush won more delegates (574) and conquered more real estate (16 states) than any other Republican contender ever had on a single day. That gave Bush just over 700 delegates, vs. 165 for Dole; only 1,139 are needed for an absolute majority. Bush thus has a stronger grip on the nomination than Reagan did at this stage in 1980. "This is something historic," said Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater. "There will never be another regional primary with this sort of conclusive impact." Bush began to sound credible Tuesday night when he told supporters in Houston, "I'm now convinced I will be the President of the United States."