hustings, only to find that he was being shunned as the new Typhoid Mary of American politics.
The first stop was an early-morning fund raiser in Burlington, Vermont, designed to benefit Rep.
Peter Smith, a freshman Congressman. Smith was supposed to give Bush a rousing introduction and
then bask in the warmth of Bush's support. But instead, Smith astounded Bush and his handlers by
launching into a tortured monologue on all the points of disagreement that divided him from Bush.
Smith told of howrebelled, with the result that he caught political hell for his pro-Bus he had been loyal to Bush on October 5, and of howh vote. Smith demanded that his constituents had then
Bush now raise taxes on the wealthy. Smith also menmtioned the civil rights bill: "My specific
disagreements with this administration are a matter of record," Smith stressed. Poor Smith: his pro-
Bush vote on October 5 had doomed him to defeat in his close race with Bernie Sanders, the former
socialist mayor of Burlington.
Bush stewed, raged, and squirmed. He looked around to see if anyone would come to his aid.
Sitting next to Bush was GOP Senator James M. Jeffords, who had voted in favor of the civil rights
bill Bush had vetoed. He had made an emotional speech in the Senate lambasting Bush for trying to
punch giant "loopholes" in the civil rights of citizens. Jeffords sat staring straight ahead, doing a fairimitation of Bush at the Nashua Telegraph debate. When Bush got up, he was dissociated and
tongue-tied. He stumbled through his speech, improvising a few lines in which he praised the
independent-mindedness of Vermonters like Smith, but whined that he wished it would not come at
his expense. Bush then asserted that
we have a sluggish economy out there nationally. That's one of the reasons why I favor this deficit
so much. [fn 55]
The crowd was puzzled; some of them were perhaps driven to try the socialism of Bernie Sanders
over this. The mental disintegration of George Bush went on apace.
Bush's second stop of the day was in Manchester, New Hampshire. Here he was greeted by his old
friend, the Manchester Union Leader, with a front page cartoon of the granite-faced man in the
mountain saying "Read His Lips, Mr. President. Go Home and Take Your Taxes with You." Here
there was no attack on BusC. Smith, had obviously concluded that any film footage showing him in the same picture withh's economics; the candidate he was supposed to be helping, Rep. Robe rt
Bush would pose the threat of disaster, so he had simply stayed in Washington. The congressman's
wife was there to tell the audience that her husband had stayed in Washington for House votes he
could not miss; an apoplectic Bush ferociously chewed on an apple before he rose for perfunctory
remarks.
Bush's third stop was in Waterbury, Connecticut, where the beneficiary of his presence was Gary
Franks, a black Republican whom Bush needed as a fig leaf for his veto of the civil rights bill.
Franks solved the Typhoid Mary problem by barring the news media from the campaign event, so
no sound bites associating him with Bush could be used against him by his opponewas a brief photo opportunity with Bush and Franks together. nt. Later there
Surely Bush had cut a ridiculous figure. But how many Iraqis would die in January, February and
beyond to assuage Bush's humiliations of this day?
Bush's last pre-election campaign trip would eliminate stops in Oregon, Nebraska, Illinois, and
North Carolina, where Republicans teetered on the edge of defeat. Bush was trying to cut his losses,
and he was not alone. During the months before the election, Bush had spent hours sweating under
television lights to tape endorsement commercials for over 80 GOP candidates. One Congressman,
Rep. Alfred A. McCandless of California, used pieces of Bush's tape in a commercial designed to