Even as the First Couple declined to go public and point the finger of blame, the rest of the Bush administration was doing little else. Cabinet secretaries attacked Bush’s manipulative budget chief Richard Darman, nicknaming him “Dick Dahmer, the man who cannibalized the Bush presidency.” Vice President Dan Quayle publicly blasted the campaign staff (translation: chairman Robert Teeter) for never developing a campaign strategy. Jim Pinkerton, a former White House staffer who spent years peppering officials with new ways to address social problems only to be ignored, blasted his colleagues for being intellectually “bankrupt.” The voters fired Bush, Pinkerton charged, because the administration was “conservative enough to be suspicious about big government, but we weren’t smart enough to figure out how problems could be solved.”
Other loyal Bushmen were either mournful-this wouldn’t have happened if Lee Atwater were still alive-or all too delighted to stick a knife into Jim Baker’s deflated rep. The bill of particulars: he ran a reactive campaign, never seizing the agenda for Bush, his heart wasn’t in it, he was overrated to begin with. They mocked his suggestion that Bush hold up his “Agenda for American Renewal” at every campaign stop. “Baker seemed to think that if voters saw a few pages called an economic plan, they’d suddenly believe Bush was committed to reforming the economy. Does he really believe the American people are that dumb?” asked one top administration official.
Such chatter wounded Baker, who never wanted the job of Bush’s savior in large part because he did not believe the president could be saved. Now he watched and fumed as his accomplishments as secretary of state were buried in the rubble of a Democratic victory. Baker’s friends struck back, quoting him as saying it wasn’t his fault that Bush had so little to say about the economy. Every economic proposal from “Read my lips” to “I’ll never, ever raise taxes again” was a mistake, according to Baker.
There is, of course, plenty of blame to spread around. But there is really only one answer to the question “Who Lost the White House?” and that is Bush himself True, Teeter and Baker ran a lousy campaign. But in the end, Bush was defeated by his failure to govern. After the gulf war, the president ignored polls that showed that a majority of Americans believed the country was on the “wrong track.” Bush thought there was little government could do to correct social and economic problems, so he did virtually nothing. “The administration simply miscalculated the degree of sentiment for change,” says Bill Kristol, Quayle’s chief of staff.
Kristol, who scored high points for helping Quayle slightly improve his image, will soon have his pick of academic or think-tank jobs. But many Bush aides face grimmer prospects. Last week they polished their resumes and waited for the phone to ring. They were worried. Not only were they losing the trappings of power, but they were about to discover what the questioner who stumped Bush in the second debate was talking about: how did the recession affect you? Friends called with condolences, but for most senior officials early job offers were few and far between.
Bush just wants out–out of Washington and out of the spotlight. He’s told aides his main priority for the rest of his administration is to make sure the transition is handled with “style and dignity.” Some top officials want Bush to grant presidential pardons to Caspar Weinberger and other Iran-contra defendants on the ground that their indictments were politically motivated. But Bush is said to be hesitant, fearing that the pardons would be interpreted as an effort to cover up his own role in the scandal. He and Barbara will seek refuge in a Florida fishing trip this week. Mrs. Bush plans to house-hunt in Houston later this month. The Bushes are not ones to look back, but they do hold grudges. It will be a long time before they forgive the aides they blame for the president’s defeat–if they ever do.
