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Sununu is consolidating his role as the Administration's de facto chief political officer. Last week, after Jim Wray, director of the White House political office, took a new job at the Republican National Committee, Sununu put his executive assistant, Ed Rogers, in charge. From the beginning, Sununu has served as a key political liaison to right-wing Republicans. He assiduously solicits their views and appoints their candidates to key second- level posts in the Administration: for example, placing staunch opponents of abortion at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Sununu is quietly shaping a handful of issues on which Bush can run for re- election. On one front -- clean air, child care, education reform, help for & the disabled -- Sununu and Bush are stealing popular issues that traditionally belong to the Democrats. On another the White House is preparing "wedge" issues to sharply distinguish Republicans from Democrats. These include opposition to broad new taxes, support for a constitutional ban on flag burning, and aggressive brandishment of the presidential veto to hold down government spending. Mindful that voters are more inclined to trust Republicans than Democrats on law-and-order issues, Sununu has pushed to define the drug issue to his party's advantage. In his view, curbing drug abuse is more a matter of hiring cops and building prisons than of education and treatment. The latter, says a senior Republican, are things "any fool Democrat can do."
It is a sound political strategy. But the question remains whether Sununu will be around to see it implemented. Those who know him best say there is no limit to his abilities or political ambitions. When a well-wisher at Sununu's inauguration as Governor remarked to his mother that she must be very proud, she replied, "Oh, Governor is nice, but President -- now that would really be something."
For his part, Sununu says he wishes only "to serve George Bush as long as he wants me" -- for eight years, he hopes. That would be a feat never accomplished since the advent of the modern chief of staff. Yet for Sununu to survive two full terms, he might have to temper the fire-eating act that wins him Bush's respect and trust, which are in turn the source of his power. As a senior White House official observes, "Although there appears to be mortal combat in Washington, most people here treat one another with extraordinary respect. There is a lot of continuity, and people have to live and work together for a long time. So the Sununu approach would be better for a short- timer than a longtimer."
The early defeat Bush and Sununu suffered in the Senate over the nomination of John Tower as Defense Secretary is an object lesson in the perils of arrogance. Tower was for years a power in Washington as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee -- but like Sununu, he made enemies he did not need to make, including fellow Senators. And, though it took a while, Tower got his payback when his colleagues denied him his crowning glory at the Pentagon.
A Lebanese proverb holds that "one kisses the hand that one cannot yet bite." John Sununu doesn't work that way. The rest of Washington does.