"I NEVER TOLD YOU THIS" Ibid.
"I'LL SLEEP BETTER TONIGHT" Ibid., February 29, 1988.
BUSH ENCOUNTERED A STONY-FACED ROBERTSON BACKER Ibid., February 27, 1988.
"LOOK, THIS IS" Ibid., February 28, 1988.
STILL, THIS STARING Ibid.
REAGAN "MADE A COMMENT" Ibid., February 29, 1988.
"JACK WILL GET OUT" Ibid., March 3, 1988. Overtures along the same lines had come "from John Loeb to Dick Allen, and from Charlie Black to Lee Atwater." (Ibid.) "I DON'T KNOW" Ibid.
DONALD TRUMP MENTIONED Ibid., April 1315, 1988.
IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY Ibid., March 5, 1988.
WENT ON TO SWEEP THE Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 152.
(BUSH'S ONE DEFEAT) Ibid.
"THAT TENSION SLEEPLESSNESS" GHWB diary, March 9, 1988.
"HE'S A DESPERATE" Ibid., March 13, 1988.
SENATOR JAKE GARN OF UTAH Ibid., March 19, 1988.
"THE MOOD HAS CHANGED" Ibid., March 17, 1988.
DOLE ENDED HIS CAMPAIGN Ibid., March 29, 1988.
BUSH CALLED HIM Ibid.
THE TWO MEN MET Ibid., April 6, 1988.
RICHARD NIXON CAME TO DINNER Ibid., April 15, 1988.
NIXON LIKED HIS SWORDFISH Ibid.
NIXON TICKED OFF Ibid.
"I ASKED NICK BRADY" Ibid., April 25, 1988.
THE EVENING ENDED Ibid., April 15, 1988.
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH" Ibid.
MICHAEL DUKAKIS WAS Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 35455; NYT, July 6, 1988.
HE CUT HIS OWN GRASS NYT, July 6, 1988.
"I BELIEVE WE'RE GOING" GHWB diary, April 25, 1988.
"A LITTLE MIDGET NERD" Ibid., May 6, 1988.
"THE GUT ISSUES" Ibid., April 21, 1988.
"A CLASSICAL LIBERAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE" Ibid., April 27, 1988.
THE PRESIDENT WROTE HIS REMARKS Ibid., May 12, 1988.
"NOT TOO FULL OF PRAISE" Ibid.
THAT EVENING, AT THE WASHINGTON CONVENTION Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1988, bk. 1, January 1July 1, 1988 (Washington, D.C., 1990), 58890.
"IF I MAY" Ibid.
"GEORGE BOSH" Newsweek, March 9, 1992; Chicago Tribune, May 13, 1988.
NO MAN WHO HAS SAT Author interview with GHWB.
"A GIGANTIC FLAP" GHWB diary, May 12, 1988.
"I WAS SURPRISED" Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Ronald Reagan: 1988, bk. 1, January 1July 1, 1988, 590.
"I STILL HAVE" GHWB diary, May 15, 1988.
TWENTY-NINE: I'm Stronger and Tougher I HAVE NO APOLOGIES GHWB diary, November 4, 1988.
YOU HAVE A GARY COOPER Ibid., April 27, 1988.
THERE WERE "CYCLES" Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History (Boston, 1986), 2348. For my account of the 1988 presidential campaign, I drew on, among others, Naftali, GHWB, 4564; LSY, 32156; Brady, Bad Boy; Cramer, What It Takes; Goldman and Mathews, Quest for the Presidency, 1988; Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes; Sidney Blumenthal, Pledging Allegiance: The Last Campaign of the Cold War (New York, 1990); Wicker, GHWB, 98104; and sources cited below.
ACCORDING TO AN INTERNAL BUSH CAMPAIGN SURVEY Memorandum to George Bush for President from Frank McBride and Fred Steeper, "Survey Findings: Components of Negative Impressions of Bush," May 13, 1988, Papers of Richard G. Darman, Private Collection.
BUSH TRAILED DUKAKIS Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 156.
"WE HAD TO DEFINE DUKAKIS" Author interview with Roger Ailes.
THE TASK OF DEFINITION James Pinkerton interview, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project, Miller Center.
"ELEVEN OF THEM" Above the Fray, MSNBC documentary, 2015.
"WOW," PINKERTON RECALLED James Pinkerton interview, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project, Miller Center.
YES, CARD REPLIED Ibid.
THE CLIPS MADE FOR COMPELLING READING Ibid.
HORTON WAS A CONVICTED Brady, Bad Boy, 17374. See also Naftali, GHWB, 6162.
THE EAGLE-TRIBUNE PUBLISHED Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 1112.
WHILE THE PROGRAM HAD BEEN SIGNED Brady, Bad Boy, 174.
DUKAKIS HAD VETOED Ibid.
"TO BE SURE, SOME IN THE BUSH CAMPAIGN" Sidney Blumenthal, "Willie Horton & the Making of an Election Issue; How the Furlough Factor Became a Stratagem of the Bush Forces," WP, October 28, 1988.
IN THE CONVERSATION WITH PINKERTON Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 12.
FOR THE BUSH CAMP, A PICTURE WAS FORMING LSY, 335.
BELONGED TO THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION Ibid.
ACCORDING TO A MEMORANDUM Lloyd Green to GHWB, "Re: American Civil Liberties Union," July 27, 1988, ACLU, Daily Files/Subject File, Vice Presidential Daily Files, GHWB Collection, GBPL.
CONSIDERING THE CLUSTER OF ISSUES Goldman and Mathews, Quest for the Presidency, 1988, 301. "The euphemism in politics for work like [Pinkerton's] was 'opposition research,' which sounded sanitary, almost academic," Goldman and Mathews wrote. "A more apt analogy might have been dum-dum bullets, and the moderator [at the Paramus focus groups, discussed below] began firing them. Dukakis had vetoed a bill mandating the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. He was against the death penalty, even for kingpins in the drug trade. He opposed prayer in the schools. He had stood up for his state's generous program of weekend passes for convicts, even murderers serving life sentences without hope of parole. No one shot in the volley seemed to draw much blood, but the cumulative effect was dramatic." (Ibid., 301.) WHILE A "BRIGHT, HONORABLE" Baker with Fiffer, Work Hard, 265.
THE BUSH TEAM CONDUCTED TWO FOCUS GROUPS Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 15759. See also Brady, Bad Boy, 17778; and Goldman and Mathews, Quest, 299303.
TOLD ABOUT THE FURLOUGHS Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 158.
BUSH RECEIVED A DELEGATION Ibid., 15960.
BRIEFED ON THE FINDINGS Author interview with Roger Ailes.
WOULD "LOOK DESPERATE" Ibid.
"WE ARE DESPERATE" Ibid.
BUSH HAD BEEN HERE BEFORE Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 14142, 15961. The research about the country's overall mood-the Missouri survey from the Darman Papers cited above was an example-was particularly concerning to the Bush camp. As Goldman and Mathews wrote of a Bob TeeterFred Steeper conversation in late April: "The news in their numbers was unsettling: people were doing well enough economically, but there was an incongruous restlessness out there, Steeper thought, a sense that things were going wrong and that it was time for a change. No one issue drove them; it was instead a worry list of seven or eight things-the environment, the deficit, the homeless-and if Dukakis managed to put them all together, he could win." (Goldman and Mathews, Quest for the Presidency, 1988, 299.) "I COULD TELL BUSH WAS THINKING" Author interview with Roger Ailes.
"IT WILL BE EASY" GHWB diary, June 12, 1988.
"I THINK I'M STRONGER" Ibid., August 12, 1988.
A "DEFINITIVE" SPEECH Ibid., June 9, 1988; Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 161. See also Cramer, What It Takes, 101011.
"WHAT IT ALL COMES DOWN TO" NYT, June 10, 1988; Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 162.
"I AM A PRACTICAL MAN" Ibid.
"MUDSLINGING AND NAME-CALLING" Germond and Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes, 16162.
"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE" Ibid.
"YOU CAN BE" Baker with Fiffer, Work Hard, 24041.
AFTER BUSH MADE HIS CASE Ibid.
NANCY REAGAN HAD JOINED Author interview with James A. Baker III.
"NANCY DOES NOT LIKE BARBARA" GHWB diary, June 12, 1988. Bush made this entry after a conversation with Tom Arnold, a friend who had spoken with Lee and Walter Annenberg, who were friendly with both the Bushes and the Reagans. (Ibid.) AS A GETAWAY Ibid., July 19, 1988.
"FOR EIGHT STRAIGHT YEARS" "Transcript of the Keynote Address by Ann Richards," NYT, July 19, 1988.
"IS NOT ABOUT IDEOLOGY" Michael S. Dukakis acceptance speech, July 21, 1988, CNN.com, www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/chicago/facts/famous.speeches/dukakis.88.shtml.
DUKAKIS LED BUSH Goldman and Mathews, Quest, 420.
IN A "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL" MEMORANDUM Roger Ailes to James A. Baker III, et al., August 9, 1988, Papers of Richard G. Darman, Private Collection.
THE CAMPAIGN POLLED Notes of August 4, 1988, Papers of Richard G. Darman, Private Collection. According to Darman's handwritten notes, these trial tickets were polled in California. (Ibid.) EASTWOOD WAS A PASSING IDEA Ibid. See also Richard Darman, Who's in Control? Polar Politics and the Sensible Center (New York, 1996), 188.
"BUSH'S LIST" LSY, 343.
HE WAS INTERESTED IN Ibid.; Naftali, GHWB, 59; author interview with GHWB.
WHOM HE'D GOTTEN TO KNOW IN THE REAGAN YEARS Author interviews with GHWB and Dan Quayle.
DAN QUAYLE, WHO HAD RISEN Quayle, Standing Firm, 1415; Naftali, GHWB, 59.
BIRCH BAYH, A LEGENDARY LIBERAL LAWMAKER Quayle, Standing Firm, 1415; author interview with Dan Quayle; Naftali, GHWB, 59. Quayle recalled that Bayh was "considered a political giant." (Quayle, Standing Firm, 14.) QUAYLE HAD PASSED Quayle, Standing Firm, 1718.
HE WAS ONE OF THE FEW MEMBERS Author interview with Roger Ailes.
WAS DECIDEDLY CONSERVATIVE-A MEMBER IN GOOD STANDING Author interviews with GHWB and Nicholas F. Brady. See also Naftali, GHWB, 59.
BOB TEETER AND ROGER AILES HAD WORKED FOR QUAYLE Author interview with Dan Quayle.
"HE'S KNOWLEDGEABLE ON" GHWB diary, July 20, 1988.
HE HAD BRIEFLY CONSIDERED Dan Quayle interview, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project, Miller Center.
"I TALKED TO MY WIFE" Ibid.
"HE WOULDN'T GET INSTANT CREDIBILITY" GHWB diary, July 27, 1988.
"DOLE WOULD BE MORE INSTANTLY" Ibid., August 13, 1988.
QUAYLE, WHO KNEW Author interview with Dan Quayle.
"HE HAD KNOWN ME" Ibid.
AS HE PREPARED TO LEAVE GHWB diary, August 16, 1988. "I got on the plane knowing that I wanted to pick Dan Quayle," Bush told his diary. (Ibid.) HE HAD NOT HAD A FINAL GUT CHECK Author interview with GHWB. "The way Bush ultimately arrived at this decision says much about his leadership style," wrote Timothy Naftali. "He made the decision alone without a family conference or a meeting of his inner circle of advisers: James Baker, Lee Atwater, Robert Teeter, and Roger Ailes." (Naftali, GHWB, 59.) In an interview with the author, Bush made the same point about keeping the decision from his inner circle-he wanted to do it, he said, "on my own." (Author interview with GHWB.) As Goldman and Mathews wrote, "The vice president had shut them all out-his chairman, his G-6, his own family-and had come to the point of choice his way, alone, secretive and reckless of the cost of the consequences." (Goldman and Mathews, Quest for the Presidency, 1988, 315.) "I WANTED IT TO BE" Author interview with GHWB.
DID NOT KNOW Author interview with Robert Kimmitt.