Keeping Bush On Message

In the front section of the campaign plane headed to Davenport, Iowa, George W. Bush is being briefed on some health policy issues. Quite suddenly he stops the seminar, peers over the back of his seat and, with a mischievous look in his eyes, loudly addresses me: "I have something to say."

I've been given a rare invitation to the inner sanctum, the no-press section of the plane, to interview Karen Hughes, Bush's communications guru.

"Karen Hughes is one of the most talented people I have ever met in the political arena," said the Texas governor, now serious. "She is very smart, her judgment is impeccable, she's got good instincts and she's confident enough to follow them. She uses her skills in a very effective way."

With that, the governor slid back down in his seat and returned to health policy. His comments made Hughes blush. Usually it's the 43-year-old Hughes, communications director for the Bush campaign, who does the bragging about her boss.

"My role is to help communicate to the American people why Gov. Bush ought to be president as clearly and directly and as often as I can." Clearly, she takes that last part very seriously. "I talk all day for a living," she declared.

She is passionate about her cause. And no one who pays close attention to the campaign doubts that Bush leans heavily on Hughes. She offers her own take on what Bush expects from her: "I think he knows he can rely on me to tell him what I really think and he may or may not agree with it. But he relies on me too, I think, to be able to call it the way I honestly see it."

For her part, Hughes can't seem to stop talking about the Candidate, even for a moment. When asked about the flattering fact that she is now the highest-ranking woman ever in a Republican presidential campaign, Hughes manages to turn her answer into another plug for her client. "I also recognize that having a high-profile woman in this campaign helps the governor because it lets people know how inclusive and open he really is," she said.

Hughes joined the Bush team for his 1994 bid for governor after a stint as executive director of the Texas Republican Party. "We called it the campaign of joy because we seriously had fun," she said, adding she didn't think they would win against popular incumbent Gov. Ann Richards. "We were really challenging the odds and it gave us a great spirit of camaraderie and teamwork, and over the course of that campaign we became, I think, not only great colleagues but also good friends," Hughes said with a smile.

Hughes' unrelenting promotion of Bush has often frustrated journalists who have covered the governor over the years. "She's a true believer. She's very loyal to George Bush," said Wayne Slater, a veteran reporter for The Dallas Morning News. "The result is you find out what she wants you to know and nothing more."

"Fear runs through this ampaign. They fear her," said another reporter who insisted on keeping the remarks off the record. "She is relentlessly on message and she keeps him (Bush) relentlessly on message as well."

Translation: We don't get any knowing winks, "just between you and me" exclusives, or any background juicy stuff. We just get the scripted theme of the day.

Nelson Warfield, a Republican consultant who worked for Bob Dole during his 1996 GOP presidential bid, admires Hughes for positioning herself that way. "To know all and tell some is the best position for a communications person to be in," Warfield said. In his view, reporters are difficult - if not impossible - to please.

"No leaks in the Bush campaign is frustrating to reporters," Warfield said. "Karen takes guff for that, but from the campaign's point of view you don't want leaks."

The Bush-Hughes team, as it often does, is making its way to the back of the plane for its daily interaction with the traveling press corps.

The governor jovially greeted reporters, some with handshakes, others with a wink and smile. Hughes was not far behind him, doing her own version of a meet and greet. "How are you?" she said to a print reporter. "Nice to have you with us," to a television producer. All the while, she balanced a notepad on one hand, writing on it with the other hand, eavesdropping on the governor's conversation and scoping out the media horde to make sure no one is aboard she does not know. It is a powerful combination of Texas style politics and Texas style charm at work.

There's a strong contrast between Hughes' professional and personal sides. The undisputed toughness she displays in the political game seems very distant from her family life. A wife and mother of a 12-year-old son, Hughes often assumes the role of "baseball mom" on the weekends.

"I am not a workaholic," Hughes asserted. "As a mom you feel a real responsibility to be nurturing and to be there." Her son traveled with her in New Hampshire and South Carolina during the primaries. She tries hard to be there for him, and skipped the governor's trip to the Kentucky Derby to stay in Austin and attend her son's doubleheader.

Still, even when Hughes is in mom-mode the campaign is never far away. "Two things I do on the weekends that I always find very interesting and insightful are go to my son's sports events, and the second is to go to church," Hughes said. "It gives me good insight into what the real people who aren't in the campaign or covering the campaign are gleaning from what is happening in the newspapers or television or what they are thinking about what they are seeing."

As the vice presidential selection story heats up and the conventions approach, reporters aren't optimistic about getting the governor and Hughes off message. "For seven years, there were no big leaks out of the governor's office," Slater sad, "She's a pro, she's good and she knows what she is doing."

Another reporter who has only covered the presidential campaign, adds, "She runs a really, really tight ship. I can't think of even three exclusives that leaked out. Karen had a lot to do with it. She is so apprehensive we will write something negative."

More than one reporter noted this campaign in many ways is reminiscent of the Reagan campaigns with their laser-guided delivery of calculated pictures and sound bites. "It is a photo-op campaign," said one experienced reporter. "Ronald Reagan was the master, Clinton was good, these guys are pretty good too."

Swing 16 of the campaign is about ten minutes from conclusion. The captain has instructed everyone to sit for landing at Austin. But up pops Karen Hughes, heading for the back of the plane. This time she balances a laptop on one hand, gestures with her other hand and reads the press corps a wire report that quotes Vice President Al Gore referring to the people of Bosnia as "Bosniacs."

"I just want to make sure you all know this," she says.

Hughes says her friends ask her all the time if she will follow Bush to the White House if he's elected. "I tell them I'm like Scarlett O'Hara I'll think about that tomorrow."

But the people on the press plane certainly can't imagine her leaving Bush behind.

For the momment, Hughes is staying on message as she continues reading from her laptop about Gore and the Bosniacs.

"I am sure you will give equal and fair coverage to this like you did to the governor's foreign policy quiz," Hughes instructs a tired press corps, most of whom have already filed their final stories for the day. With that, she closes her laptop and returns to her seat.

One last lick for Bush before landing.