What It Takes (113 page)

Avery had the state studded with his trademark signs, verticals:

A

V

E

R

Y

... down the sides of a thousand telephone poles. So, every time Dole’s workers found one of those poles, they tacked a horizontal sign on the bottom:

TAXES

By the day of the primary vote in August, it wasn’t even close: Dole beat Avery two-to-one. Dole was going to the U.S. Senate.

B
USH KNEW HE WAS
headed for the Senate. That’s where he belonged, like his dad. He had no doubt. He could have held that House seat forever, like a birthright: that new district, Houston’s Seventh, had been birthed for him. After one term (in fact, by the filing deadline—after thirteen months on the job), he was unopposed!

And he was a certified star: there were forty new Republicans elected to that Congress, in the rebound after the Goldwater debacle. Bush was chosen as president of the freshman class. For the first time in decades, a GOP freshman got a seat on Ways and Means. (Pres Bush had called on old friends for his son.) From the start, everybody knew about this bright, handsome young Republican ... from
Houston
—a chink (at last!) in the solid South. George Bush was the Party’s bold breeze of the future.

He was invited to address GOP luncheons, and breakfasts of bigwigs. He’d talk about the revival of the two-party system—change on the southern wind! What a hopeful vision! He wore that excitement like a suitcoat thrown over one shoulder, as he strode down the hallways with a greeting and a grin—he was having such a good time.

It wasn’t legislating that ran his motor: he wasn’t one of those annoying first-termers who think they’ve got to make floor speeches and pepper the House with bills. The only bills he pushed were aid for birth control (always an interest of Pres’s—maybe unfinished business for the old man) and a short-lived proposal on Congressional ethics. (This pup published his tax returns!) ... Most of his work he did in committee, as a quiet, respectful student of the chairman, Wilbur Mills. (Mills loved him: after the kid filed that birth-control bill, Mills always called him Rubbers.) ... When the bells rang, Bush would hustle to the floor, check in ... but most days—just speeches, or conference reports—he could leave with his new friend, the Mississippi Democrat, Sonny Montgomery, for a do-or-die dollar-a-game paddleball match in the House gym.

It was the life, itself, that Bush found bracing: all the doing, new friends—he was in such demand! There wasn’t ten minutes to sit around: he had committee, he had a lunch, a meeting at Interior! ... He’d grab his coat and bolt for his office door, calling over his shoulder to Aleene Smith (she’d come with him from Houston): “Allie! See what Mr. Holburn needs, will you—he’s on the phone!” ... He’d
run
through the anteroom, with that lock of hair falling onto his forehead, and the ladies of his office clucking, through their smiles: “Mr. Bush! Tuck in your shirttail!”

(In Houston—it was Houston every other weekend, no matter the effort required—the office ladies adored George Bush. Sometimes, if things got slow, Bush would exit his inner office in a flying ballet leap—just to make
les gals
giggle. Late one day, a little woman came by. She was a mousy sort, no makeup, poor dress—probably a hard-luck case. She wanted to see Mr. Bush. But the ladies had no time to tell him before he flew into the office in a twisting
tour jeté
. ... Then he saw the woman. He froze ... on the ball of one foot, with his arms outstretched ... and blushed crimson to the roots of his hair.)

No wonder they loved him—and talked about the way he was: how
a man like that
could be so nice. He’d pick up the phone himself if it rang more than twice, and he’d listen to some voter’s tale of woe. (“No,” he’d say to the phone. “No, that doesn’t sound right, at all. We’ll look into it, right away. ... No! Thank
you
for calling!”) Same with the mail: answers by return post. Aleene would cram his battered briefcase every night—might be thirty or forty letters typed up. He’d sign every one, add a couple of lines in his lefty scrawl. The Capitol postman told Aleene that Bush got more mail than anyone else in the Longworth Building. (That’s because he sent more. One Houston lady wrote him a letter. So, he wrote her back. So, she wrote to thank him for his response. So, he wrote her back, thanking her for her thank-you note. Finally, she sent him a letter that said: “You remind me of my aunt, Mrs. Ponder. She just won’t stay written to.”)

This wasn’t exactly politics with Bush—more like life. The day his moving van arrived in Washington, it was a terrible snow: George sent Bar off to Sears, through the storm, to buy sheets so the movers could stay the night—he insisted! ... Don Rhodes was a volunteer on his campaign in Houston. Rhodes had a hearing problem, and people thought he was strange, maybe slow-witted. (He wasn’t.) Bush not only took him along for the Washington staff, he moved Don into his house. ... Visitors from his district (in fact, visitors from all over Texas; Bush had run statewide before he ever had a district)—George might have asked them to sleep over, too, if he’d had room. As it was, he had to hold himself to fussing over them in the office, posing for pictures, leading tours of the Capitol, making sure they got to see everything in Washington, and ... wasn’t it great how it worked out? Bush inherited a couple of staff ladies from the Texas Democrat who used to represent his part of Houston, so, of course, they knew the crowd in LBJ’s White House. They’d call up and get
special
tours: not just the state rooms, but the Family Quarters (that picture of George Hamilton on Lynda Bird’s night table!)—well, you put that together with a ride on Bush’s
boat
(George just had to show them how the city looked from the Potomac), and Bar’s picnic, with the pâté, wine, and salad, and ... no wonder he was unopposed!

In fact, that was one reason he could make that vote—’68, the open-housing bill—Bush knew he would face no opponent in November. Still, there’d be a howl of protest. Sonny Montgomery told him, in the gym: “Your district ain’t gonna like this.” Bush didn’t need analysis from Sonny. For God’s sake, some of Bush’s voters wouldn’t ride in a car that a Negro had sat in—wouldn’t play the same
golf course
. ... Bush agonized for weeks.

What stuck in his mind was Vietnam, his trip, those soldiers—black soldiers—in the jungle, in the uniform of their country ... how could he let them come back to a nation where they couldn’t live where they chose? He could not. He couldn’t let politics change the way he was.

So he voted for the bill. He meant to take the heat.

But this wasn’t heat. This was ... ugly. First the calls—
les gals
had to hear them:

“You tell Bush we don’ need no Connecticut Nigra-lovers ...”

“Are you half nigger-blood, too? ...”

Then the letters—thousands of letters. Don Rhodes was up all night trying to get out answers. But how could Bush answer?

“It’s Communist says who I can sell my house to ...”

“I know niggers are running the government ...”

The threats menaced his staff and his family. One letter mentioned his children by name. After a week, Bush looked like he’d aged ten years. His face sagged. There was no excitement in his words or walk. He went back to Houston, and ... that was worse. The office felt like the Alamo. The ladies tried to cheer him:

“They’re just kooks,” Sarah Gee said.

“They aren’t thinking ...”

“Everybody else is for you ...”

Bush just sat at his desk, staring at the wall. Sarah saw the look of the bereaved. She didn’t even know why she said it—it just came out:

“Oh, George ... I’m sorry.”

Bob Mosbacher called, said the money men were up in arms. “You want me to try to get ’em together, talk to them?”

Bush’s voice was weary:

“No, I gotta do it myself.”

So, he did: he got twenty-five big givers into a room. Bush had the air of a man who’d been beat up. “I know we agree on so
much
,” he told them. He didn’t ask them to support his vote—just to keep in mind the other votes. It was almost pleading! “If you can’t support me anymore ... well, I hope I can still have your friendship.”

He did feel he was beaten—not this time, no, it was too late to lose reelection ... but what about next time? What about the Senate? All the great doings, the big plans ahead? ... In fact, his loss went deeper than elections: it had to do with the choices he’d made for twenty years—in Texas—his feeling that he could speak for Texas. Was he wrong? ... God! What if it was
all wrong
?

He wrote to a friend:

“I never dreamed the reaction would be so violent. Seething hatred—the epithets—the real chickenshit stuff in spades—to our [office] girls: ‘You must be a nigger or a Chinaman’—and on and on—and the country club crowd disowning me and denouncing me. ...

“Tonight [I was on] this plane and this older lady came up to me. She said, ‘I’m a conservative Democrat from this district, but I’m proud, and will always vote for you now’—and her accent was Texan (not Connecticut) and suddenly somehow I felt that maybe it would all be OK—and I started to cry—with the poor lady embarrassed to death—I couldn’t say a word to her.”

He would always remember the moment when he knew ... that night—a town meeting. The crowd booed him and muttered his name with a menacing hiss as he was introduced.

So he told them, he knew what they thought. He told them, he knew some people called him lib-rull. But it wasn’t conservative or liberal—this vote. It was just ... fairness. He told them about Vietnam—those soldiers—how could he let them come back? ... How could you slam a door in a guy’s face, just ’cause he’s a Negro, or speaks with an accent? ...

There was no more to say. He was going to sit down, in the silence. He turned to thank the moderator, and behind him he heard applause, a scattered few, and then, when he turned, more clapping, everybody was clapping ... and then some stood, in front, and more behind. They were clapping—
for him
—because he did what he thought was right, and he’d said so. He didn’t think they agreed—still—but they gave him a standing ovation.

God! He could have kissed them all!

That’s how he knew, he was going to the Senate—not a doubt. This time, 1970, he would beat old Yarborough fair and square—he
knew
it—Texas was changing!

That’s what Bush kept saying: Yarborough was out of touch! The state had passed him by. People didn’t want that New Deal, promise-’em-the-moon kind of government, that kind of Senator—no. They wanted a modern conservative. They wanted George Bush!

This time, he’d have his ducks in a row. He’d been around, he had friends everywhere. This time, he’d have a professional Campaign Manager—Marvin Collins, great guy! He was signed on already. He’d have a big budget—two million, for starters. And a Bush-friend, John Tower, had taken over the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee—he’d send along whatever he could. And the President would help! President Nixon was on a roll: he was targeting races all over the country. Nixon said Texas was number one, and he asked Bush to run—personally! Even LBJ might help. Bush went to see him. The old man certainly wouldn’t lift a finger to help Yarborough. Neither would John Connally. They all hated Ralph! ... This time, Bush wouldn’t have to scrape for issues—he’d had his eye on Yarborough for six years. He had the old snake-oil salesman locked in the cross hairs.

Bush had such big plans for 1970: ads all over the state, and not just in cities, but on every dustland radio station—Spanish, too! Bush didn’t see why this race, his race, should not mark the
realignment
of Texas. Why shouldn’t the GOP grab its share of the Mexicans? And Negroes—my God, he
ought
to get some Negro votes! (Election night, 1968, though he had no contest, he’d
grabbed
for the tally sheets: he wanted to see those colored precincts. Wouldn’t you know it? Jeez!... After all that—two-thirds wouldn’t even cross over for him—with
no Democrat against him
!) ... But that wouldn’t matter—that would be gravy—once he started hammering away at the old guard, the liberal, the tired voice of the past, Yarborough.

Then, the unthinkable happened: with a vicious, attacking campaign, a south Texas Democrat, a businessman (and former Rep) named Lloyd Bentsen ... came out of
nowhere
(actually, he came out of Connally’s hip pocket) ... and took the senior Senator down. Yarborough lost his primary. George Bush lost his target.

Now it was Bush against Bentsen—and all of Bush’s plans were air. George tried to tell folks it was fine—this would be
easier
—but even his friends couldn’t see it. Bentsen was conservative—just like Bush, when you got down to it—and tough (he proved
that
against old Ralph). Bentsen could play the veteran card (he was a pilot in the war, too) and the business card (he’d made more of a pile than Bush). He had the same Congressional experience as Bush. He was just as nasty on Crime ’n’ Commies, a practiced south Texas hand with the Mexicans, a Democrat Texans could live with. ... So, here came Lyndon’s pals from the Perdenales ... and here came that greazy John Connally on the tube, making ads for Bentsen ... here came all the courthouse Dems, the yellow-dog Dems, and the better-dead-than-red Dems. Bentsen brought them all back from the grave. Worse still, here came a ballot issue to allow sale of liquor by the drink. So thousands of rural Baptists would turn out against demon rum ... and on the way, they’d likely vote the standard Democrat ticket.

And Bush? Well, he had the Republicans—but there still weren’t many of those. (The electorate was at least four-to-one Democratic). ... He had his friends in business, his constituents in Houston. ... His manager, Marvin Collins, tried to cook a deal with the liberal Democrats (who hated Bentsen for what he’d done to Yarborough), and he nurtured a noisy group of Democrats for Bush. ... Bush still had high hopes for the Negro vote. He’d gone to the
wall
for those people!