Word: duberstein
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...come home. The true believers there, and later that day in San Diego, wept and shouted and chanted, "We love you!" White House chief of staff Ken Duberstein, a veteran of years of campaign hoopla, was stunned as the sound filled the hall. "I've never heard anything like it," remembered Duberstein. And then Reagan invoked the memories of his dead parents: "And I just hope that Nelle and Jack are looking down on us right now and nodding their heads and saying their kid did them proud...
Senior White House aides say that Reagan's backing of Bush never interferes with official duties; all campaign trips are funded by the Republican Party. The main reason things mesh so smoothly is the eight-year friendship between White House Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein and Bush's campaign chairman, James Baker. Said an official: "It's a policy of daily contact and no surprises...
...will be able to accuse Baker's designated successor of a casual management style. A burly, backslapping Brooklyn native, Duberstein made a name for himself as the Administration's aggressive congressional liaison from 1981 to 1983. Before joining the White House staff last year, he worked for four years as a lobbyist at Timmons & Co., a Washington consulting firm. He usually arrives for work at 7:15 in the morning and tries to return to his suburban Maryland home by 8 in the evening to tuck in his two young children. When he isn't chain-smoking Marlboros...
...Duberstein's backers say his promotion will be a wake-up call for a drowsy White House. "They're entering the final stretch now, and they need a little adrenaline," says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. "He can energize the President in a way Baker couldn't." Others say that Duberstein's hard-driving style can be alienating. "Kenny's got a strong will and a strong set of convictions," says Tom Griscom, Reagan's communications director, who is leaving the White House with Baker. "He can be tough, determined. He knows when to put his foot down...
...biggest challenge facing Duberstein may be finding something exciting to do. Reagan's agenda for his final months in office is hardly the stuff to send an overachiever's blood racing: preparing for the economic summit in Toronto this week, leading a virtually hopeless drive to win more funds for the Nicaraguan contras, working to revise the trade bill, pushing for stringent work requirements in the new welfare-reform legislation, campaigning for Bush. While Duberstein tries to generate enthusiasm in his staff, some observers expect a rash of White House resignations this summer. "I wouldn't want to be here...