[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Barbara Bush
Abstract
Barbara Bush brought her own style to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but she made sure it was a style that many Americans approved. There was no question that she could ignore the press--her husband's job required her public participation and the pictures to go with it. Yet she preferred to take no stands. This was a balancing act how to look concerned about important issues but remain outside the circle of controversy that surrounded them. A competent press secretary saw that flattering photos appeared--showing a matronly First Lady holding a baby with AIDS, reading to youngsters in the inner city, and playing with the family dog. When television interviewers posed a thorny question on policy or personnel, she adroitly sidestepped a direct answer.
For eight years, Barbara Bush had been preparing for the job from the vantage point of the vice-president's house. Ascent of the secondin-command was by no means assured in American political history. Not since the 1830s, when Martin Van Buren moved up, had a sitting vice-president won election to chief executive, and several Republicans worked to keep that tradition alive a bit longer. Conservative Representative from New York Jack Kemp, television evangelist Pat Robertson, and Senate Republican leader Robert Dole all made spirited runs for the nomination in 1988. But George Bush had not merely bided his time, since losing out to Ronald Reagan in 1980; he had worked hard to cement support among key Republicans and raise the funds to make a strong presidential run. 110
During the course of the 1988 campaign, both George and Barbara Bush became considerably better known to voters. Like so many of her predecessors in the White House, she boasted more than one ancestor who had served in public life. Her father Marvin Pierce was distantly related to the fourteenth president of the United States, Franklin Pierce....
