Bush Follows The Peanut Trail

The candidate is early and there is a twinkle in his steel blue eyes as he realizes he has caught the press corps unprepared. The scurrying photographers amuse him. As he smiles, he looks like a younger Henry Fonda, at once aristocratic and plebian, handsome and ordinary. He hops on the back of a red pickup truck and moves to a small podium. "I'm George Bush" he says, "and I'd like your support." In a slow northeastern twang, he talks of issues and Iowa, occasionally pounding the podium and moving to the climax of his speech. "I'm optimistic about this country," he says. "I know we can turn things around." John Connally can go back to the ranch, Howard Baker and Bob Dole can go back to the Senate, Philip Crane and John Anderson can go back to the House and Ronald Reagan can go back to being Ronald Reagan--but "by gosh," George Bush wants to be president.

Jimmy Carter brought the American people drive, personal style and a new face in 1976 and George Bush has them all this time around. The former CIA chief and ambassador to the United Nations is openly and unabashedly copying Carter's come-from-nowhere '76 strategy. Grab the early contests, catch the attention of the media, and write your own convention ticket. Bush has followed the peanut trial well and the gameplan is working even better the second time around.

Four years ago Iowa made Carter a credible candidate; this year, it made George Bush an instant frontrunner. The media discovered George Bush. The day after his January 21 victory, Bush was "on the move," and on the cover of every major newspaper in the country, not to mention Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine and countless political journals. When the media discovered George Bush, so did the people. The fallout from the Iowa publicity has been a meteoric rise in the polls. A Newsweek poll conducted a week before the caucuses showed Reagan annihilating Bush, 45-6 per cent nationwide. Two weeks later, with the caucus history, a second poll showed Bush trailing Reagan 36-27. In what many believe to be strong Reagan country, a Boston Globe poll shows a one per cent Bush lead in New Hampshire. The Reagan camp has shifted gears, but many think it may already be too late.

If Sears and Reagan had stepped out of the blinding California sunshine early last January, they would have changed their strategy for Iowa. Bush had nabbed most of the party's volunteers, and the other candidates were scrambling for leftovers. Bush was campaigning as if he were running for Governor; he and his wife visited 86 of the state's 99 counties. Nationally, Bush had resurrected the Ford campaign machine that sent Reagan home in 1976 and hired Ford's campaign manager, James B. Baker.

Reagan is campaigning this time around, but the Bush organization is well-primed. Newly found funds, flowing into campaign coffers since January 21, financed a TV advertising blitz. The organization's efficiency can be gauged by the ultimate variable--the candidate's contact with the people. In his last full day of Granite State stumping, Bush, to the consternation of the press, arrived at each destination five minutes early. The candidate was fully briefed and flawless. At a local high school he cited a poll from the previous week and at the Rochester Elks Club he knew the names of all the Big Elks and even some of the little ones. In each town, Bush referred to the times he'd visited during the previous year. By the end of the day, the reporters were wondering if the campaign hired an understudy who camped out in the state that summer and fall.

Bush's speeches are upbeat and optimistic. They focus on solutions and "turning the country around," whereas Reagan's are harrangues on the nation's ills.

The two men share many of the same positions; but their public statements, as Roy Reed wrote in the Times magazine, are very different. Reagan's position on the Panama Canal: "We built it. We paid for it. It's ours." Says Bush: "I understand trying to break out of colonialism. I understand that you don't go out and cut a swath through another guy's country to build a canal. But I think it's of overriding importance that the United States keep its commitments, and that's the reason I oppose the treaty." On paper it may sound like so much politicizing but from the podium, the voters tell you, this man sounds sincere.

It is the sincerity both of a statesman and the guy next door whom you can invite over for a barbecue. George Bush is the friendly family doctor who specializes in frequent house calls. Ronald Reagan, meanwhile, is the chief surgeon operating on an anesthetized, failing patient. And if you believe George Bush, Americans don't want to be told they're dying. Bush's product is a conservative clothed in a moderate's rhetoric. He supports registration for the draft but denounces "war talk." He opposes SALT II on the ground it is based on Carter's perception of the "world as he wishes it were and not as it is." Yet he states that SALT III would be the driving force behind his administration.

His domestic policy follows the same conservative line, balanced by moderation. In the short term, the onetime Texas congressman supports the development of nuclear power hand in with the development of fundamental safeguards to insure against disaster. But in the long term, Bush declares, "We will have to explore solar energy." He supports ERA but opposed extension of the ratification deadline.

Bush's economics combine a balanced federal budget and a reduction in federal spending. To tighten American belts he proposes stricter eligibility requirements for federal programs like Food Stamps and grading federal programs on their efficiency. Programs that consistently received low marks, he says, would be revamped or eliminated.

To keep the economic wheels turning, Bush supports a windfall profits tax and a tax cut to stimulate investment in the economy. The most soothing element in the Bush dosage, however, is the packaging. Bush states his measures of austerity as one he "honestly believes" have to be taken. He says it once again: "We're going to have to do things to turn this country around."

Bush's appearance--the "middle-aged but fit" look--further draws the line between him and Reagan. He is 56 years old and prides himself on telling voters that he feels 35. Standing next to 69-year-old Reagan, he does look 35. His ubiquitous personal and political background has proved a great asset to the effort. The man is from everywhere. He is the son of Prescott Bush, former millionaire senator from Connecticut. Bush can genuinely identify himself as a New Englander, a preppie, an Ivy Leaguer, a Texan, a southerner or a westerner--and he does.

Politically his background is just as checkered. Bush was the Republican's utility infielder, a ballplayer who has never held one position long enough to know it well or to be able to be judged by his performance at that slot. In a short six years, from 1971 to 1977, Bush was chief delegate to the United Nations, National Chairman of the G.O.P., chief envoy to Peking and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The public does not seem to mind this grocery list of short-term administrative posts; Bush bills himslf as a leader "the country won't have to train," and most polls give high marks to his potential ability to deal with major problems, particularly in foreign affairs.

If Bush's resume has convinced the public, it has not impressed New Hampshire's leading newspaper, the Manchester Union-Leader. William Loeb's daily front-page editorials sing the praises of Reagan and report in vivid terms what Loeb calls "Bushgate"--allegations made to the Watergate special prosecutors in 1974 that Bush accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions from a secret Nixon slush fund. The charges were thrown out of court. But Loeb's paper is widely read, and in past elections his support has shifted votes.

George Bush has been stung by "Bushgate" and he jumps at the opportunity to deny any wrondoing. But his real concern is following his carefully-laid game plan. Bush hopes to recreate Jimmy Carter's successful drive to the presidency; he knows that Ronald Reagan cannot survive a second humiliation. But if he is to march triumphantly to Detroit in July he must run ahead of Reagan tomorrow or next week. To keep his candidacy moving, George Bush must hold to his campaign plan. That game plan leaves no place for defeat