Bush hoped for a time that his slick television packaging could save him. His man Harry
Treleaven was once more brought in. Bush paid more than half a million dollars, a tidy
sum at that time, to Glenn Advertising for a series of Kennedyesque "natural look"
campaign spots. Soon Bush was cavorting on the tube in all of his arid vapidity, jogging
across the street, trotting down the steps, bounding around Washington and playing touch
football, always filled with youth, vigor, action, and thryoxin. The Plain Folks praised
Bush as "Just fantastic" in these spots. Suffering the voters to come unto him, Bush
responded to all comers that he "understands," with the shot fading out before he could
say what it was he understood or what he might propose to do. [fn 32] "Sure, it's tough to
be up against the machine, the big boys," said the Skull and Bones candidate in these
spots; Bush actually had more money to spend than even the well-heeled Bentsen. The
unifying slogan for imparting the proper spin to Bush was "He can do more." "He can do
more" had problems that were evident even to some of the 1970 Bushmen: "A few in the
Bush camp questioned that general approach because once advertising programs are set
into motion they are extremely difficult to change and there was the concern that if Nixon
should be unpopular at campaign's end, the theme line would become, 'He can do more
for Nixon,' with obvious downsides. [fn 33] Although Bentsen's spots were said to give
him "all the animation of a cadaver," he was more substantive than Bush, and he was
moving ahead.
Were there issues that could help George? His ads put his opposition to school busing to
achieve racial balance at the top of the list, but this wedge-monerging got him nowhere.
Because of his servility to Nixon, Bush had to support the buzz-word of a "guaranteed
annual income," which was the label under which Nixon was marketing the workfare
slave labor program already described, but to many in Texas that sounded like a new
give-away, and Bentsen was quick to take advantage. Bush bragged that he had been one
of the original sponsors of the bill that had just semi-privatized the US Post Office
Department as the Postal Service. Bush came on as a "fiscal conservative," but this also
was of little help against Bentsen.
In an interview on women's issues, Bush first joked that there really was no consensus
among women -- "the concept of a women's movement is unreal--you can't get two
women to agree on anything." On abortion he commented: "I realize this is a politically
sensitive area. But I believe in a woman's right to chose. It should be an individual
matter. I think ultimately it will be a constitutional question. I don't favor a federal
abortion law as such." After 1980, for those who choose to believe him, this changed to
strong opposition to abortion.
One issue that helped Bentsen was "inflationary recession," also called stagflation. "I
think [the President] should use the moral persuasion of the White House to help keep
wages and prices within reason, instead of following policies which have put nearly 2
million Americans out of jobs without stopping inflation," said Bentsen. Bush was stuck
with parrotting the lines of the 1970 model Nixon, which was about ready for a closeout.
Could Nixon and Agnew help Bush? Agnew's message fell flat in Texas, since he knew it
was too dangerous to try to get to the right of Bentsen and attack him from there. Instead,