Walking Jenna down the aisle. White House/Shealah Craighead
After I announced my candidacy in Iowa in June 1999, Laura and I went to Maine to visit Mother and Dad. I gave them an update on the campaign. Then the four of us walked out onto the lawn together. At our back was the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. In front of us was a large group of photographers. Mother got off one of her classic one-liners. She looked at the press corps and asked, “Where were you in ’92?”
I laughed. I was amazed by this wonderful woman. She was responsible for so much good in my life. I turned to Dad. My mind went back to my early days spent looking at pictures of him in scrapbooks. Like those old photos, his face was worn. But his spirit was still strong. I told the press what I had known for a lifetime: It was a huge advantage to be the son of George and Barbara Bush. What a journey we had shared. Seven years earlier, Dad’s final campaign had ended in defeat. Now I was standing proudly at his side, with a chance to become the forty-third president of the United States.
When I got back to Texas, my first stop was Bob and Jan Bullock’s house. The years of abuse had taken their toll, and Bob’s body was giving out. His skin was losing its color, he was bedridden, and he was wearing an oxygen mask. I gave him a gentle hug. He lifted his mask and picked up a copy of Newsweek from his bedside table. My photo was on the cover.
“How come you didn’t smile?” he said. I laughed. It was vintage Bullock.
Then he caught me by surprise. “Governor,” he said, “will you eulogize me at my funeral?”
He slipped his oxygen mask back on and closed his eyes. I told him about my visit to Iowa and my announcement speech at the barbecue. I’m not sure he heard a word I said. After our extraordinary run together, my unlikely friend and I would both be moving on.
*Don Evans was the campaign chairman; Joe O’Neill was the treasurer; Robert McCleskey handled the accounting.
**I am particularly grateful to Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, American League President Bobby Brown, and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox for their help in navigating the buying process.
***The final tally was 110 to 95 in books, 40,347 to 37,343 in pages, and 2,275,297 to 2,032,083 in total square inches.
****The team included my friend Jim Francis as chairman; Don Evans as finance director; Karl Rove as the top strategist; Stanford-educated lawyer Vance McMahon as policy director; former Texas Association of School Boards official Margaret LaMontagne as political director; Dan Bartlett, a recent University of Texas graduate, on the communications team; and Israel Hernandez, a hardworking UT grad who took pressure off Laura and me, as traveling aide.
ick’s face was hard to read. He betrayed no emotion. He stared at the cows grazing under the broiling sun at our ranch in Crawford, Texas.
It was July 3, 2000. Ten weeks earlier, after securing the Republican presidential nomination, I had sent campaign manager Joe Allbaugh to visit Dick Cheney in Dallas. I asked him to find answers to two questions. First, was Dick interested in being a candidate for vice president? If not, was he willing to help me find a running mate?
Dick told Joe he was happy with his life and finished with politics. But he would be willing to lead the VP search committee.
As I expected, Dick did a meticulous, thorough job. In our first meeting, I laid out my top criteria for a running mate. I wanted someone with whom I was comfortable, someone willing to serve as part of a team, someone with the Washington experience that I lacked, and, most important, someone prepared to serve as president at any moment. Dick recruited a small team of lawyers and discreetly gathered reams of paperwork on potential candidates. By the time he came to see me at the ranch in July, we had narrowed the list to nine people. But in my mind, there was always a tenth.
After a relaxed lunch with Laura, Dick and I walked into the yard behind our old wooden ranch house. I listened patiently as Dick talked me through the search committee’s final report. Then I looked him in the eye and said, “Dick, I’ve made up my mind.”
As a small business owner, baseball executive, governor, and front-row observer of Dad’s White House, I learned the importance of properly structuring and staffing an organization. The people you choose to surround you determine the quality of advice you receive and the way your goals are implemented. Over eight years as president, my personnel decisions raised some of the most complex and sensitive questions that reached the Oval Office: how to assemble a cohesive team, when to reshuffle an organization, how to manage disputes, how to distinguish among qualified candidates, and how to deliver bad news to good people.
I started each personnel decision by defining the job description and the criteria for the ideal candidate. I directed a wide search and considered a diverse range of options. For major appointments, I interviewed candidates face to face. I used my time to gauge character and personality. I was looking for integrity, competence, selflessness, and an ability to handle pressure. I always liked people with a sense of humor, a sign of modesty and self-awareness.
My goal was to assemble a team of talented people whose experience and skills complemented each other’s and to whom I felt comfortable delegating. I wanted people who agreed on the direction of the administration but felt free to express differences on any issue. An important part of my job was to create a culture that encouraged teamwork and fostered loyalty—not to me, but to the country and our ideals.
I am proud of the many honorable, talented, hardworking people who served in my administration. We had low turnover, little infighting, and close cooperation through some of the most challenging times in our nation’s history. I will always be grateful for their dedicated service.
I didn’t get every personnel decision right. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, “I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.” I didn’t operate quite that fast, but I’ve always been able to read people. For the most part, this was an advantage. But there were times when I was too loyal or too slow to change. I misjudged how some selections would be perceived. Sometimes I flat out picked the wrong person for the job. Personnel decisions were among my first decisions as president—and my most important.
A president’s first major personnel decision comes before taking office. The vice presidential selection provides voters with a window into a candidate’s decision-making style. It reveals how careful and thorough he or she will be. And it signals a potential president’s priorities for the country.
By the time I clinched the Republican nomination in March 2000, I knew quite a bit about vice presidents. I had followed the selection process closely when Dad was discussed as a possible running mate for Richard Nixon in 1968 and Gerald Ford in 1976. I had watched him serve eight years at President Reagan’s side. I had observed his relationship with Dan Quayle. And I remembered the vice presidential horror story of my youth, when Democratic nominee George McGovern picked Tom Eagleton to be his running mate, only to learn later that Eagleton had suffered several nervous breakdowns and undergone electroshock therapy.