ustxtxb_obs_1997_11_07_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

cording to Rove, between one-fourth and one-third of George W.’s direct mail fundraising during the last campaign was derived from out-of-state lists. “The obvious target is people who have contributed to George H. W. Bush,” Rove said. “That’s a very useful list for us to mail.” I called one of the funders on the George H. W. Bush list, who last year contributed $1,000 to George W. Russell S. Reynolds Jr. lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, and is the founding director of Russell Reynolds Associates, an international executive recruiting firm. He was also a lending officer for Morgan Guaranty Trust, was chair of the George Bush for President Finance Committeein Connecticut, is a Yale graduate, and an avid cruising/racing sailor. I asked him about his contribution to a governor of a state 1,800 miles from Connecticut. “I have lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, all my life, which is where the Bush family is from. I knew Prescott Bush, Senator Prescott Bush and his wife Dorothy. He was with Brown Brothers and Harriman here, then became a Senator during the Eisenhower Administration. And he was the President of the Yale Glee Club and a Whiffenpoof, as was I. So he always liked me. “They are an electric family, with tremendous personality, and enormous charm, great sense of public service. Very much, um, what is the word, they feel an obligation to others, they’re generous people, and they were taught by their parents. And now, I’m talking about the parents of the President, the grandparents of the Governor. They are world-class people. They have a different way of looking at life, and they are not out for themselves. They believe in public service and in giving rather than taking. They’re smart, they’re attractive, they are on the ball. And in Greenwich, which if I do say so, is kind of a sophisticated community, the Bush family are absolute tops. “Jonathan Bush is on the board of directors of one of the firms I founded, Russell Reynolds and Associates. Through the Bush brothers, I met George W. Bush 1 and I think he’s one of the most attractive, able, articulate, savvy people I’ve ever met. He’s good looking, he’s a good athlete, he went to Andover, Yale, and I guess, Harvard Business School. He’s got everything. He’s got a lovely wife, brains, integrity, and of course an incredible political background and political experience. In my opinion he makes the Kennedys look sick, because he is not marred by any historical scandals or skeletons in the closet. “Senator Bush was clean as a whistle, revered, a real leader. And George Herbert Walker Bush, in my opinion, is one of the most outstanding people I’ve ever met. A role model of leadership and civic propriety. He has a terrific wife who’s from around here, named Barbara Pierce. You know, he was a hero at Yale, and he always was a leader. He doesn’t have any enemies, except probably in politics. Personally, he and his wife are just the very best kind of people. They don’t have vendettas, they don’t have wars, they don’t play tricks, they always take the high road. He’s a perfect gentleman, plus a public servant. I thought he did an outstanding job for Reagan and so on and so forth. So it’s not surprising that one of his children would emerge as a truly gifted person.” George W. Bush, is, according to Russell S. Reynolds Jr., the only Republican candidate for president, and “we are behind him 1,000 percent.” Bush has enough personal wealth that he won’t have “to do any tricky deals.” You don’t buy that sort of loyalty. You’re born into it. The Governor, Reynolds said, will be in Connecticut next month raising money. With those connections and Karl Rove’s direct mail, the 1998 gubernatorial race might top all previous spending recordseven if Garry Mauro decides to retire from public life. L.D. Corrections Not in My Bedroom. “Aggie Air Corps” \(Political Intelligence, October spokesman for Comptroller John Sharp, except for the statement that Sharp and Republican Agriculture Commissioner Rick Perry were roommates at A&M. Then-Democrat Perry and Sharp were in the same unit in the Corps, but did not room together. Environmental Racism. In “Nuclear Affirmative Action” \(October gest that Hispanics would be good targets for a public relations campaign to promote a nuclear-waste site in their community. The pollsters also recommended that the Waste Authority specifically target a community of “low-income” Hispanics. NOVEMBER 7, 1997 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5