Word: sununu
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Many New Hampshire Republicans believe that Bush owes them his presidency. Bush's come-from-behind victory over Senator Robert Dole in the 1988 primary (due largely to a Sununu-directed distortion of Dole's record) revived the President's faltering campaign. "Thank you, New Hampshire," said Bush after he won the presidency. "I'll never forget." As a result, says Senator Dupont, "a lot of New Hampshire Republicans got big jobs in Washington, with Sununu at the top of the list. But what has it done for us?" The answer -- a single word heard from many New Hampshire Republicans...
Bush finally did something last week -- in fact, several things. He replaced unpopular White House chief of staff John Sununu with Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner, a likable moderate who has emerged as one of the Administration's smoothest troubleshooters. He appointed a trio of pragmatic political strategists -- Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, pollster Robert Teeter and Republican businessman Fred Malek -- to lead his re-election campaign. Yet before the week ended, two of Bush's advisers publicly disagreed about the wisdom of cutting taxes for the middle class, once again underscoring the divisions within the President's inner circle about...
...this activity did nothing to dispel the impression that the President, relatively surefooted in foreign affairs, has no clear ideas for solving homegrown problems. Sununu did not help matters by his autocratic, high- profile style, and in recent weeks he found himself embroiled in several public spats that did not inspire confidence in his leadership. At one point Sununu seemed to criticize the President for a remark about high interest rates on credit cards; at another point he accosted a Washington Post reporter at a bill-signing ceremony, shouting, "You're a liar! Everything you write is lies!" Skinner...
...November, after several of Bush's political strategists warned that they would find it difficult to work with Sununu on the 1992 campaign, Bush concluded that his chief of staff had become a serious liability. Yet the President, who values loyalty above all else, could not bring himself to give the bad news personally to his old friend. Instead he delegated the assignment to his oldest son, George W. Bush, who met with Sununu...
...either because the younger Bush was too deferential in delivering the message or because the chief of staff refused to understand it, Sununu deluded himself into thinking that he could save his job by rallying conservatives behind him. Instead of resigning, he began phoning conservatives on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, imploring them to let the President know they supported...