Opinion: Bush confidant brutally critiques the GOP field
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
One of the trademarks of the intimate George W. Bush crowd is their circumspection. You don’t hear them talking much about each other or fellow Republicans in public. In a dark corner of the plane late at night on the way home from a long day on the road perhaps. But they’re not about burning bridges. The boss doesn’t like public spats.
So, for instance, we’ve never heard how Karl Rove and Karen Hughes really feel about each other. Maybe that’ll come in their books.
Meanwhile, there’s Peter Baker‘s surprising story from the Trail blog and this morning’s Washington Post. Dan Bartlett, one of the most circumspect of Bush’s longtime Texas crowd, who resigned as White House counselor last July, recently gave a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Hardly anybody noticed.
Not any longer.
According to Baker, Bartlett’s remarks came on Sept. 13 as part of a tag team of speakers with Terry McAuliffe, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and current chairman of Hillary Clinton for President. Both are represented by the same speaker’s agent. Such publicity as this could increase the reported $20,000-$30,000 fee Bartlett receives.
Bartlett called former Sen. Fred Thompson the ‘biggest dud’ of the current Republican campaign. He said former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s last name sounds too much like a hick’s. He said Sen. John McCain just might pull off another upset in New Hampshire like he did in 2000 and once again lose the nomination struggle. And Bartlett opined that former Gov. Mitt Romney has ‘a real problem in the South’ over his Mormon religion.
Other than that, Dan, how do you feel about the field?
According to Bartlett, the big question about Thompson was whether he had the drive to become president. ‘So what does he do?’ Bartlett said. ‘He waits four months, fires a bunch of staff, has a big staff turnover, has a lot of backbiting, comes out with his big campaign launch and gives a very incoherent and not very concise stump speech for why he’s running.’
Romney has the best strategy and organization, Bartlett said, but has allowed his national...
narrative to become about his flip-flopping, ‘trying to hedge himself, almost too mechanical about the issues.’
Then there’s the religion issue, which is a ‘real problem in the South’ and elsewhere. But ‘people are not going to step out and say, ‘I have a problem with Romney because he’s Mormon.’ What they’re going to say is he’s a flip-flopper.’
Bartlett calls McCain the campaign’s ‘biggest wild card.’ ‘He’s lean,’ said Bartlett. ‘He’s mean. He’s out there fighting; he’s fighting in New Hampshire. The problem’s going to be, it always comes down to money, money, money.’ And the longtime Bush confidant sees McCain possibly winning again in the Granite State but not having the money or campaign infrastructure to quickly construct a national campaign.
Then there’s Huckabee, whom Bartlett calls the ‘the most articulate, visionary candidate of anybody in the field.’ His problem is his hometown, the same as Bill Clinton‘s, and his last name. ‘Politics can be fickle like that,’ Bartlett says. ‘I mean, you’re trying to get somebody’s attention for the first time...Huckabee? You’ve got to be kidding me. Hope, Arkansas? Here we go again.’
Interestingly, Bartlett did not knock Rudy Giuliani. In fact, he credits the former mayor with having the ‘best message’ and smartly focusing on attacking Democrats, not Republicans, because then the attention is on them and not Giuliani’s often atypical Republican positions.
Bartlett did not predict a GOP nominee. But he did say Republicans are so concerned about losing the White House after losing both houses of Congress that ‘I think this is going to be the season of the pragmatic Republican voter. That bodes well for Rudy and it gives McCain a shot, because I think people feel McCain can go toe-to-toe with Hillary in the general election.’
Bartlett told Baker he was not speaking for the president this time. ‘They were my views only,’ he said.
--Andrew Malcolm