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The fab four
Meet the people maneuvering behind the scenes to put George W. Bush in the White House.
By Robert Bryce
[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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In leaping from Vacationland -- the state that exemplifies The Way Life Oughta Be -- into the Granite State, whose inhabitants insanely declare their determination to Live Free Or Die, Bush proved quite the adept political swimmer, making few waves while somehow seeming to simultaneously create quite a splash.

Everyone on the Good Ship Bushipop is happy and dry. They are, in the words of their captain, "positive and hopeful and upbeat and optimistic." And why not? The finance chair of the Bush 2000 campaign, Don Evans, says that the campaign should report collections of $15.2 million by the end of the month. The list of endorsers reads like a Who's Who in the Republican Party. And the latest New Hampshire poll, conducted by the American Research Group of Manchester, N.H., has Bush kicking proverbial arse against the entirety of the crowded field of Republican contenders, with 38 percent of state voters leaning toward voting for him -- 22 points ahead of his closest rival, sugar-coated Red Cross dominatrix Elizabeth Dole.

"Do you plan on helping the campaign out in any official capacity?" I asked Neil Bush, 44, brother of the anointed one.

"It's kind of bigger than me at this stage," Neil replied.

As Neil recalled, the first time the Bush brood turned out to have one of its own assume the mantle of Leader of the Free World, things didn't go so well. While stumping for his padre in 1980, Neil noted at a jam-packed supporter reception at Saint Anselm College, "we'd be lucky to get 10 people at an event like this." Things weren't so tough in this go-round

"It's going really well; he's certainly excited," seconded Marvin Bush, 42, another member of the brethren. "When he came up to Maine from Iowa on dad's birthday [on Saturday] he was really heartened by the response there -- by the supporters; by the size of the crowds. In '79-'80, we went out there [to Iowa] as surrogates for our father, and on a good day you had 10, 15, 20 people in a room. This time, all the events are overflowing with people and enthusiasm."

Indeed, the flaccid 1980 effort to elect the elder George Bush ruler of the universe began with then-New Hampshire Gov. Hugh Gregg dispatching a half-dozen young men he called his "Zekes" (a ragtag crew comprising Neil Bush and five others in their 20s) throughout the state. Now, one of the original "Zekes," Joel Maiola -- an advisor to Gregg's son, Sen. Judd Gregg -- is coordinating Bush's New Hampshire effort, and its kick-off, at least, could serve as the gold standard for every forthcoming presidential primary campaign.

Not that everyone's quite on board. Bush's arrival in the Granite State was greeted with a bilious editorial from the state's largest newspaper, the raw-meat-chewing Manchester Union-Leader. The paper noted that "if something more than a winning smile is needed, if the voters demand some real substance, then Gov. Bush has yet to prove himself." Of Bush's five years as governor of Texas, the paper said, "the Bush style ... is to lay low, look for popular issues, let others do the hard work, and then step up to claim credit in the hour of victory."

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