Bush Camp at All-Time Political Low

WASHINGTON â€”  Last Wednesday, standing on the street corner with Ed Rollins, I looked at my former adversary and good friend with a mixture of sadness, fear, pride and anger. Sadness, because for many years we have traveled this country together, analyzing politics and, for some months, written this side-by-side column. I will miss him.

Fear, because I know the great risk Ed is taking, personally and professionally. We spent many agonizing hours discussing his decision to co-chair Ross Perot’s campaign with Hamilton Jordan. He knew the risks of breaking with a party he’s been with for many years. Could he come back? Would there be retribution?

But his biggest concern was the implications for his wife, Sherrie, who worked for George Bush. Only if she agreed would he do it. To her credit, she did. Only then did Ed make his decision.

Pride, because although I don’t believe Perot would make a good President, I know Ed does, and he decided to help Perot because he believes things are desperately off track, urgently need to be changed and feels Perot is the best hope for that change.

But the most potent emotion I felt was anger, because a coordinated effort to discredit Ed and Hamilton had already begun at the White House and Bush campaign. With Ed, it was that he was selling out for $5 million. That’s a lie. The truth is--and I know the details--he will make less than if had he stayed with his current business.

The next line of attack was that he is a has-been. Yeah, he’s a has-been! He has been the most successful GOP operative of his generation. Bush and the GOP owe Rollins an enormous debt. The real has-beens are the incompetents running the Bush reelection campaign (with the exception of the talented Mary Matalin). Their latest shot is that Ed wrote a letter begging to join the Bush campaign. Funny thing, when asked to produce the letter, the White House refused.

But what I take most personally are the latest rumors about my old friend Hamilton Jordan. Hamilton overcame cancer several years ago and has remained cancer-free. But now these unconscionable punks in the Bush campaign and the White House claim Hamilton took the job with Perot because his cancer has returned and that Perot has promised to take care of his family.

This is not guesswork on my part--I was told this by a senior Bush adviser. And Jody Powell, President Jimmy Carter’s former press secretary, was called by a senior White House correspondent asking him to confirm the rumor, since he had heard it from a White House official.

This is the type of gossip polluting the U.S. political system. The rumor is being spread so widely that I’m afraid some tabloid may run the story and Hamilton’s children will see it. They are young and may believe it. I know you guys around Bush don’t have any heart, but if you’ve got just a thread left, think of his kids.

So why this effort to discredit two good men? The Bush camp realizes there is nothing they can do to build up their candidate. They have watched his job approval plummet from 90% to 38% and his disapproval skyrocket from 18% to 58%. They realize their only hope is to tear down the other two and give the public a choice of the lesser of three evils.

Enter Bush campaign employing what has become old hat for Republicans--dirty campaign tactics resulting in unfounded character assassinations.

Now to the real point, you Bush boys. In politics there is hard-ball, which I understand, and then there are sleaze and immorality, which are unacceptable. There are no words, at least none that can be printed, to describe the disgust people feel. Your campaign has hit an all-time low in dishonesty and underhandedness.

A number of friends of Jordan and Rollins had a conference call on Tuesday to express their outrage. There isn’t much that any of us can do about this, but there is that old axiom that what goes around comes around, or the even older axiom, you reap what you sow.

In some way I understand, given that you’ve got a loser candidate on your hands, why you thought this necessary. But it’s gone too far. I have always believed a campaign reflects the candidate. Bush hides behind the foulest people to do his dirty work for him. Say what you will about Rollins and Jordan--at least they fight their own fights.

Mr. President, do the right thing. Fire these muckrakers and try for once to do something that is in the public interest rather than your own.