What Bush Owes Sununu; And how it affects us.
In the spring of 1988, soon after George Bush had cinched the Republican presidential nomination by sweeping the southern "Super Tuesday" primaries, I asked the late Lee Atwater, Bush's campaign manager, how much he thought things might be different had Bush lost the earlier New Hampshire primary.</br></br>"I thought at the time - and I still think," he said, "that winning New Hampshire made his nomination 80 percent sure. We lose there, I'd guess we had a 20 percent chance."</br></br>Atwater spoke from the knowledge that if Bush's shocking third-place finish in Iowa (behind Bob Dole and Pat Robertson) had been followed by another loss to Dole in New Hampshire, the "fire wall" Atwater had built for Super Tuesday in the South would have been breached. The 14,000-vote margin in New Hampshire kept the South in line and, given Michael Dukakis's general-election swoon, made New Hampshire the most important election of the whole year for Bush.</br></br>You have to recall this history to understand why Bush has stood by White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu in all the gleeful sniping about Sununu's extravagant use of military aircraft as his personal taxi service. The bonds that were forged that week in New Hampshire, when Gov. Sununu and his organization helped save Bush's dream of the presidency, were bonds of steel.</br></br>Remember that Bush had failed twice in Texas to emulate his father's success in becoming a U.S. senator. Consider that in 1980, after 10 years of working his way back into political prominence, Bush's loss in New Hampshire had effectively ended his presidential bid. And recall that the polls in New Hampshire in February 1988 showed Dole overcoming Bush's early advantage.