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If Bush had any hope in 1997 of winning the Republican nomination, he had to do one improbable thing, something McCain never could do: appear to dis the father he worshipped. G.O.P. conservatives still blamed the old man for breaking his promise, raising taxes and losing to Clinton. And in any case, the last thing Bush wanted was to convey any impression that this crown was his for the taking, something he had inherited, like a seat on the board. And this was the hardest part of all, to do a sequel without anyone thinking it was a sequel--especially for someone as devoted to his dad as "W." In the next two years, he never criticized his father; that was unthinkable. Yet one of the strangest things about George W.'s climb to the top of the ticket is that he had to repudiate the family name in order to refurbish it.
In fact, his father gave him permission: In a letter to "W" and Jeb in 1998, he wrote, "Do not worry when you see the stories that compare you favorably to a dad for whom English was a second language and for whom the word destiny meant nothing... At some point, both of you may want to say, 'Well I don't agree with my dad on that point,' or 'Frankly, I think Dad was wrong on that.' Do it. Chart your own course, not just on the issues but on defining yourselves...nothing can ever be written that will drive a wedge between us--nothing at all, so read my lips, no more worrying."
And so first there was a purge: gone was the ancien regime, anyone who had had anything to do with Dad's team. For a family that could justifiably list its Rolodex as an asset on a balance sheet, it was remarkable to watch the Bush folks toss out so many cards in so public a way. Out went the Jim Bakers and the Dick Darmans, to the conservatives' delight. "The son's got a whole new team, and it looks nothing like Dad's," went the story in G.O.P. circles. In fact, Bush had not picked a new team; he just stripped a layer of paint off the old team and called it new. He had replaced his father's people with their intellectual children, their aides and alter egos. Into the campaign circle came Josh Bolton and Condi Rice and Bob Zoellick. Many had some "mainstream" credentials, and everyone on the inside knew it. On the outside, where the conservatives were watching, they didn't know; they just loved the ritual sacrifices of Dad's team. The purge sent a firm signal to the Wall Street Journal editors and the Christian Coalition that "W" was not his father, no sir.
In the meantime, as people got to know the son, they could see some strengths he brought to the game that the father lacked. Bush Sr. was never a natural on the stump: it would have been hard for anyone who summered in Kennebunkport and wintered in the low country of the Carolinas as a kid, along with servants and drivers, to come out sounding like Woody Guthrie. The younger Bush just doesn't have this problem. Raised in Midland, Texas, where dust is a daily appetizer, "W" has an instinctive feel for people--how to befriend them, talk to them, tease them, judge them--at least "double or triple his dad," said one who speaks with them regularly. Though the son attended the same schools as the father, "W" did enough time in the sandlots and oil fields of the Permian Basin to become a real Texan, who spits and swaggers and struts and swears, is a little too full of himself and can't help it.