Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
The South Carolina primary contest has gotten real ugly real quick -- and fingers are wagging at Bush.
Feb 16, 2000 | It's 2 a.m. in a hotel bar and a bunch of campaign staffers for Arizona Sen. John McCain are shaking their heads in disbelief. They knew South Carolina was going to get ugly. They didn't know it was going to get this ugly.
They knew that Texas Gov. George W. Bush came from a family where an ability to compartmentalize dirty mercenary politics was as much a part of the family DNA as a stiff upper lip and a proclivity for prep schools. And make no mistake -- these are men who understand politics and tactics, and who are aware of their boss's myriad imperfections. They knew Bush's raison d'jtre was winning. They also knew the raison d'jtre of many party partisans was to make sure Bush wins.
Still, they are somewhat incredulous.
Both Bush and McCain have run TV ads slamming the other man, and McCain's ad -- in which he compared Bush's trustworthiness to Clinton's -- certainly didn't help his campaign any. He's taken his shots at Bush here and there, but there's a lot more going on below the radar, free from the TV cameras.
Just ask Bush. On Saturday he spoke with South Carolina state Sen. Mike Fair at Seawell's Restaurant in a conversation furtively caught by a C-Span camera and boom mike. Neither man appeared to know he was on camera. Which is, as Allen Funt first taught us, the way you find out who people truly are.
"I have no explanation as to why some of the religious conservatives, particularly, are with that guy," Fair said, presumably referring to McCain, just a few days before Gary Bauer endorsed the candidate. "You haven't even hit his soft spots."
"I know," Bush said. "I'm going to."
"Well they need to be, somebody ..."
"Exposed," Bush said, finishing Fair's sentence.
"Somebody does, anyway," Fair continued.
"I agree," Bush said, ominously. "I'm not going to do it on TV."
After Bush lost New Hampshire, his team regrouped and decided it needed to hit back at McCain. Predictable enough. But let's not forget that Willie Horton was introduced to the world not by then-Vice President George H.W. Bush's presidential campaign but by one of those bogus "third party" groups. And the apple apparently doesn't fall far from the bush.
As first reported by Time, the Bush campaign went into South Carolina wondering who could be counted on to do its dirty work.
"At some point the discussion turned to who could be counted on to fire which volleys," wrote Time reporter Jay Carney of a post-New Hampshire Bush campaign meeting. "Several outside groups, including the National Right to Life Committee, Americans for Tax Reform and the tobacco lobby were mentioned. 'Right to Life will do radio, ATR will do TV ads,' said one of Bush's South Carolina advisers. 'ATR will come down with whatever we need.' No one in the meeting suggested that the campaign was or should be coordinating with these outside groups. Coordination is illegal, but it is also in the eye of the beholder, and the discussion revolved around the idea that these third-party ad campaigns would benefit Bush's effort."
Official coordination with third-party groups is a felony. And the Time article provided ample plausible deniability for the Bushies.
But Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a McCain supporter and former House impeachment manager, is convinced Bush is behind much of the gutter tactics being deployed.
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