George Bush was not the first to criticize the furlough program. Senator Al Gore had attacked Dukakis on the issue during a Democratic primary debate. As Gore noted, eleven of the prisoners who had been furloughed had turned into fugitives, and two had committed murder while out on release.
One notorious Massachusetts prisoner was Willie Horton, who used his furlough to flee to Maryland and rape a woman. In late September, an independent organization called Americans for Bush highlighted the story in an ad that featured a photo of Horton. Critics charged that Dad was appealing to racist impulses, since Horton was African-American. Dad’s campaign had nothing to do with that ad. As a matter of fact, it infuriated George Bush. He would never play the race card. He had run ads criticizing the furlough program, which was a legitimate policy issue, but he had never shown a photo of Horton or otherwise alluded to Horton’s race. In retrospect, the Horton controversy was a harbinger of a new political phenomenon: independent groups trying to influence elections.
Dad’s campaign on values—com
As in most election years, the marquee events of the 1988 campaign were the presidential debates. The first debate was held in North Carolina in late September. For me, the most memorable moment happened during the preparation for the debate. Dad had invited Barbara and Jenna to spend the night at the Naval Observatory. At some point during the night, six-year-old Barbara discovered that she was missing her beloved stuffed dog, Spikey. She informed her grandfather that she could not sleep without Spikey. An intensive search of the house and yard ensued, led by Gampy himself. I don’t know what Michael Dukakis was doing before the debate, but I doubt he was looking for a stuffed animal with a flashlight. Fortunately, Spikey was recovered unharmed, and most observers scored the debate as a draw.
The anticipation was great for the second and final presidential debate, which was held in Los Angeles. With just a few weeks before the election, the debate marked the last opportunity for either candidate to score points in front of a national audience. I did not attend that debate—or any of Dad’s debates. I was too nervous. To calm our nerves, my brother Marvin and I decided to go to a Woody Allen movie. I can’t remember the name of it, but I do remember Marvin using the pay phone in the lobby to check in with his good friend, known as PQ, to see how the debate was going. Marvin returned with the news that Dad was off to a good start. Another twenty minutes passed, and Marvin headed back to the lobby for another update. Once again the news was positive. After a third reassuring report from PQ, we left the theater and made it home right after the debate ended. A few minutes later, the phone rang.
“How’d I do, son?” Dad asked.
Without a moment of hesitation, I said, “Dad, you hit a home run.”
I was more right than I realized. Like most debates, this one would be remembered for a single moment. It came on the first question of the night. The moderator, Bernard Shaw of CNN, opened by asking Dukakis: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”
The horrifying image must have shocked most viewers, but the Governor responded as if he’d just been asked a question about the weather. “No, I don’t, Bernard. And I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life,” he said. He went on to explain his policy rationale without once mentioning the prospect of his wife’s rape and murder.
Dukakis’s answer hurt him because it reinforced a perception among the electorate that the Governor was a cold technocrat. Dad’s response was visceral. He said that he supported the death penalty for crimes that are “so heinous, so brutal, so outrageous.”
Bernie Shaw did not let Dad off the hook easily. In his first question to Dad, he asked for his reaction to the possibility that he would get elected and die before the inauguration, leaving Dan Quayle to take office. The question was prompted by the most memorable line in the vice presidential debate a week earlier. When Quayle noted that he had spent as many years in Congress as John F. Kennedy had, Lloyd Bentsen snapped, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” Bentsen’s retort crystallized the view of some critics that Quayle was unprepared to serve as President.
Dad responded that he had confidence in his running mate’s experience and ability. He also said that he had “never seen a presidential campaign where the presidential nominee runs against [the] vice presidential nominee.” Dad understood a truism in American politics: People vote for President, not Vice President. Just as George Bush did not win any elections for Ronald Reagan and Geraldine Ferraro could not win an election for Walter Mondale, Lloyd Bentsen would not win the election for Michael Dukakis. When the new polls came out a few days after the final presidential debate, the Bush-Quayle ticket had a seventeen-point advantage.
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ALTHOUGH HE HELD a solid lead, Dad refused to take anything for granted. After all, only two months earlier he had been trailing by double digits. He barnstormed across the country in the final weeks. I traveled with him on some of those trips, which brought back memories of our bus rides across Texas in 1964, when he was a first-time candidate and I was an eighteen-year-old kid. A lot had changed in the twenty-four years since then, but one thing remained the same: Dad loved spending time with his family.
One of my favorite memories of the 1988 campaign came when Dad invited Barbara, Jenna, and Laura to join him for a train trip through the Midwest around Halloween. The gesture was thoughtful; he knew they would have fun, and he enjoyed having his grandchildren around. On the flight back to Washington, Barbara and Jenna donned their Halloween costumes. I still smile at the images of our daughters, dressed as a vampire and a Juicy Fruit gum pack, walking down the aisles of Air Force Two trick-or-treating the national press corps.
Dad’s 1988 campaign was the first one in which I had been involved from beginning to end. I had learned a lot along the way—about the political process, and about my father’s character. Amid all the second-guessing that naturally takes place when a candidate’s campaign is in peril, George Bush had remained calm and steady. He stayed focused on his long-term strategy, not the daily tracking polls. Although plenty of people doubted his chances, he remained upbeat and never wavered in his belief that he would win. Even today, I still look back with admiration at the energy, discipline, and sense of timing that he showed throughout the 1988 campaign.
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ELECTION DAY FINALLY arrived on November 8, 1988. Dad was exhausted but optimistic. Our extended family gathered to watch the returns at the Houstonian Hotel. When New Jersey and Ohio came out in Dad’s column, we knew the race was over. He went on to carry forty of the fifty states, including some that no Republican has won since: California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Michael Dukakis waited for the polls to close on the West Coast and then called to graciously concede.
After a brief celebration with family and campaign aides, Dad went to deliver his victory speech. Mother was at his side, and our whole family stood behind them. Forty years earlier, he, Mother, and I had moved out to a little house in West Texas, having no idea what the future would hold. The path from that day had not been easy for George Bush. He had chosen a career in politics as a Republican in a Democratic state. He had lost as many elections as he had won. He had lived under the shadows of the Van Buren factor and Iran-Contra. Through it all, he refused to give up. He kept working, kept running, kept striving to do his best. And now, after one of the great public service careers of the twentieth century, he had the job he wanted more than any other. George Herbert Walker Bush was going to be the forty-first President of the United States.