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On the road with George W. Bush
Where never is heard a discouraging word for the goofy cowboy who would be president.
By Jake Tapper
[06/16/99]

Will unhappy Serbs turn on Milosevic?
Refugees flee Kosovo as opponents, Serbian Orthodox Church call for his ouster
By Laura Rozen
[06/15/99]

Gore gets religion
But can he co-opt the GOP's embrace of federal dollars for religious charities?
By Christopher Shea
[06/15/99]

Put a price on his head
Now that we've won the war and silenced the critics, let's put a bounty on Milosevic.
By Joe Conason
[06/15/99]

Mass graves and mine-riddled neighborhoods
Refugees and NATO troops make their way into war-torn Kosovo
By Laura Rozen
[06/14/99]

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While Hughes represents the finesse part of Bush's strategy, Allbaugh represents the muscle. At 6-foot-4 and 270 pounds, Allbaugh, who sports a crew cut and is usually wearing cowboy boots, looks more like a Marine drill instructor than a political operative. In fact, one source in the Bush campaign calls him "Sgt. Rock." Though Allbaugh's business cards say he's Bush's campaign manager, his real job is chief enforcer. With his intimidating size and sandpaper demeanor, Allbaugh plays the bad cop to perfection.

Allbaugh managed Bush's 1994 gubernatorial campaign before being named Bush's chief of staff. Before coming to Texas, he was the deputy secretary of transportation in Oklahoma. A veteran of campaigns in 39 states, Allbaugh, 46, is a graduate of Oklahoma State University.

While he's a key player in Bush's campaign, Allbaugh does carry some baggage. A lawsuit filed against the state in March by a former state employee alleges that Allbaugh tried to intimidate her into halting an ongoing investigation into several funeral homes. According to the suit, Allbaugh called the woman, Eliza May, into his office, where he and others demanded that she reveal details of her investigation while the owner of the funeral company sat in the same office. Although Allbaugh is not a defendant in the suit, he will be a key witness. His first deposition in the suit will be taken over the next few weeks. Depending on what emerges, the suit could be embarrassing for Allbaugh and Bush, who will also be deposed in the suit.

Karl Rove -- The Mind

Evans, Hughes and Allbaugh are vital components of the Bush operation, but Rove, Bush's chief strategist, is without a doubt the campaign's most important asset. Rove's ties with the Bush family go back to 1973, when he was chairman of the college Republicans, and the chairman of the state GOP was an oil man from Texas named George Herbert Walker Bush. Four years later, Rove was the first person the elder Bush hired when he decided to run for president. Rove has another claim to fame: He introduced the late Lee Atwater to former President Bush. Atwater went on to become chairman of the Republican National Committee and one of Bush's closest political advisors.

Rove has been guiding the younger Bush's political trajectory since the candidate's first shaky press conferences in November 1993, when he announced he was running against the popular incumbent, Democratic Gov. Ann Richards.

A 48-year-old political junkie who has attended nearly half a dozen colleges but never got a degree, Rove now teaches graduate students at the University of Texas. Given his credentials, Rove has plenty to teach. Nine years ago, Texas was dominated by Democrats. Today, it's ruled by Republicans. Every statewide elected office is held by a Republican and many of those officeholders owe their success to Rove. During the November election, he advised a half-dozen candidates. All of them won.

Rove has a long history in Texas politics. He worked for Bill Clements, the Republican who broke the Democrats' century-long stranglehold on the governor's office in 1978. Four years later, Rove began working for Phil Gramm, who was in the U.S. House of Representatives and a Democrat; two years later he helped get Gramm elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican. During the 1984 election, Rove did direct-mail work for the Reagan-Bush campaign. Two years later, he helped Clements win a second stint in the governor's office. In 1988, Rove advised Tom Phillips, who became the first Republican ever elected to the Texas Supreme Court (within a decade, the GOP would take all nine seats). Mark McKinnon, a consultant who used to work for Democrats and now directs Bush's media effort, calls Rove the "Bobby Fischer of politics. He not only sees the board, he sees about 20 moves ahead."

Bush values Rove's contributions. In a January interview, Bush called Rove "a close friend of mine" and "confidant" who has "good judgment." But that good judgment does not come cheap. The first financial disclosure form released by Bush's presidential exploratory committee shows that the committee paid Rove's consulting firm $220,228. That's nearly a quarter of all the money the committee spent from January to the end of March. Rove has since sold his consulting firm to devote all his energy to Bush's campaign.

But Rove doesn't mind. Last year, he told a Florida reporter how happy he is to be working for Bush, calling him "the kind of candidate and officeholder political hacks like me wait for a lifetime to be associated with." Rove may consider himself a hack, but if Bush wins, Rove will become a star. And Evans, Allbaugh and Hughes will be standing right next to him, basking in the limelight.
salon.com | June 16, 1999

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