Remembering Ronald Reagan’s wood chopping days at his beloved ranch north of Santa Barbara- and the image of an affable but hands-off president that came with it-the aide marveled: “My God, he’s just like Reagan.”
When George W. first took office there were inevitable comparisons to Bush I. Not only does Bush the Younger have his father’s looks and his gift for garble, but many of the Elder’s team-Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice-re-enlisted for Bush II. Cheney, for one, balked at the comparison. “You could just as easily say we are bringing back the Ford administration,” the vice president has said. True, he, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul O’Neill were all prominent in the Ford administration.
But now it seems that if Bush II has a political mentor it is the Gipper. Not only does George W. strike the same Western pose as Reagan, but his administration’s approach to policy and public relations are out of Reagan’s play book-literally. Karl Rove, Bush’s chief strategist, is a voracious student of the Reagan era; he’s quizzed Reagan media guru Michael Deaver both during the campaign and in recent months about how they pulled off the so-called Reagan Revolution. Deaver has been an occasional adviser to the Bushies, as has Martin Anderson, Reagan’s domestic and economic policy adviser. Rove’s plan for Bush’s first 100 days is a mirror of Reagan’s: choose a few things and stay focused on them.
“From a communications standpoint, this administration is taking more lessons from the Reagan White House than any other,” says Deaver, whose book “A Different Drummer,” a personal account of his 30-year relationship with Reagan, comes out Friday. Both presidents have similar pet policies: tax cuts, trimming the budget, even missile defense, though star wars is a lower priority for Bush, whose dearest issue is education. “Like Reagan, Bush has a few clear priorities. If you ask Americans today what George Bush believes in, they’d say a tax cut,” Deaver says.
Their governing styles are even more alike: they both delegate. That has translated into a popular media image of W and the Gipper as dumb and out-to-lunch. Reagan’s napping and Bush’s early to bed routine don’t help matters. Early reports that Bush was working out mid-morning when a man with a gun was shot outside the White House only made the president seem more like a slacker.
Anderson says that both men have been misunderstood because they don’t micromanage and they share credit. Reagan had a famous plaque on his desk that read: “There’s no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” In the book he co-edited, “Reagan In His Own Hand,” Anderson compiled a revealing collection of Reagan’s writing. The book has done more to counter the image of Reagan as a manipulated dolt than probably any other publication. The most famous anecdote is Reagan’s decision to keep the immortal line “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” in his Berlin Wall speech-despite the urging of his aides not to use it. As Anderson remembers it, Reagan asked aide Ken Duberstein, who had been sent to convince him to leave it out, “Am I the president?” “Yes sir,” Duberstein replied. “Then I guess it stays,” the Gipper said.
In W’s case, there is no such lofty example from his first 100 days. At least, none that his aides are willing to share. The examples of his engagement during the China crisis have seemed banal. “Do they have Bibles?” and “Can they exercise?” Bush asked of the Americans held in China.
Anderson says that it is too early to judge President Bush’s true role behind the scenes in situations like China. He says that Reagan would spend hours writing late into the night while the American public assumed he was asleep. Bush leaves the Oval Office about 7 p.m., but he often entertains key members of Congress at private, strategic dinners. “Presidents do a lot of things we don’t know about,” Anderson says.
No one thinks that George W. is secretly a Sinologist behind closed doors, of course. But he has emerged as one of the administrations key public relations strategists. During the China crisis, it was Bush who insisted that the administration go on with business as usual. In the Oval Office, the first Wednesday of the crisis, one of his top aides argued that Bush should not attend the Milwaukee Brewers game that Friday. The argument: the press would savage him for seeming to put America’s favorite pastime over American lives. Bush cut the aide off: “We’re going.” As Deaver explains it, “Both George W. and Reagan are comfortable with themselves. They do not have problems making decisions having to do with their image.”
That confidence permeates their policy as well. “Ronald Reagan never said, ‘What do I do?’ He knew what he wanted to do,” says Anderson, pointing to one telling anecdote. As he tells it, in September 1984, when the Cold War with the former Soviet Union was truly icy, Reagan agreed to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. The weekend before the meeting, Reagan went to Camp David, took his usual walks in the woods, while experts back in D.C. scrambled to come up with talking points for the meeting. The following Monday, Reagan summoned George Shultz into his office and thanked him and his team for all the hard work, then let them know: “I’ve written my own talking points.” It was a pivotal moment in Soviet relations and the policy set was Reagan’s.
Anderson, who advised the Bush campaign on policy and brought experts to Austin for panels on issues ranging from the IMF to vouchers, says Bush was much the same. “He didn’t say, ‘Should we cut taxes’ or even ‘How should we cut taxes?’ He said, ‘We’ve got to cut marginal rates.’ He’d give us our marching orders,” Anderson says.
In their dealings with opponents, Bush and Reagan are also from the same charm school. Reagan used to spend many a morning ringing members of Congress and wooing them to his side. Bush, through calls, personal meetings and of course nicknames, is trying the same strategy. But there is also a harder edge to their negotiating styles: Ask for more than you really want, dig in your heels, but finally settle. Reagan did this to win his 1981 tax cut; Bush appears to be doing the same thing over his tax cut. “Reagan was friendly, but he always got what he wanted,” Anderson says.
It’s much too soon to know if Bush will get what he wants. Or even if he shares Reagan’s “vision thing?” to borrow Bush I’s words. We do not live in Reagan’s era, where ideological battles were more dramatic and imperative than they seem today. But George W. clearly is trying to walk in Reagan’s footsteps even more than those of his own father.
