Bush 41 backs Romney for president, admits he’s not Gingrich’s ‘biggest advocate’

Posted on December 22, 2011 at 12:12 pm by Joe Holley
　

Less than two weeks before Iowa Republicans make their crucial caucus choices on the night of Jan. 3, George H.W. Bush offered words of support, if not an official endorsement, to an old friend, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

"I think Romney is the best choice for us," former President Bush told the Houston Chronicle this week. "I like Perry, but he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; he’s not surging forward."
Bush said he had known Romney for many years and also knew his father, George Romney, a former Republican governor of Michigan who ran for president in 1968.
Bush said he supported Romney because of his "stability, experience, principles. He’s a fine person," he said. "I just think he’s mature and reasonable – not a bomb-thrower."
Bush denied that the latter label implied that the candidate field includes any bomb-throwers.
"I’ve got to be a little careful, because I like Perry; he’s our governor," he said.
Joe Householder, a Houston-based political consultant, said that with his not-an-endorsement statements, the former president probably was drawing a distinction for voters around the country who may not be aware of the historic antipathy between the Bush and Perry camps. In last year’s Republican gubernatorial primary, with Perry seeking a history-making third term as governor, the Bushes endorsed U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
"Probably the unspoken assumption out there is that the Texan would support a Texan," Householder said. "But it’s not really surprising, given the Bush-Perry relationship, that he wouldn’t go for the governor. Plus, he’s had a long relationship with Romney."
Bush’s words of encouragement for the former Massachusetts governor also come at a time when the party establishment – of which Bush is the elder statesman – seems to be increasingly alarmed about the possibility that former Speaker Newt Gingrich might get the nomination.
Bush, as Householder noted, "still has significant influence among that sector of the party."
Choosing his words carefully, the former president said he knew Gingrich relatively well. "I’m not his biggest advocate," he said.
"I had a conflict with him at one point," Bush recalled, alluding to the crucial moment in 1990 when a recession drove him to renege on his "no new taxes" pledge. He needed a bipartisan group of party leaders, including then-House Whip Gingrich, to stand with him.
"He was there, right outside the Oval Office. I met with all the Republican leaders, all the Democratic leaders," Bush recalled. "The plan was, we were all going to walk out into the Rose Garden and announce this deal. Newt was right there. Got ready to go out in the Rose Garden, and I said, ‘Where’s Gingrich?’ Went up to Capitol Hill. He was here a minute ago. Went up there and started lobbying against the thing.
"He told me one time later on, he said, ‘This is the most difficult thing I ever had to do.’ I said, ‘I didn’t like it much myself, Newt.’"
"For the Republican elite, Gingrich is a nightmare scenario," said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist. "Either he becomes president, which is unlikely, or he hands four more years to Obama."
What’s happening, Jones said, is that the Republican establishment is rallying behind Romney, hoping to avoid a drawn-out primary slog, with each candidate trying to out-conservative the other. Whoever wins embarks on a general election campaign in a weakened position.
"The Ron Paul phenomenon in Iowa scares them too," Jones said.
Romney, Bush said, is the "most electable," despite the flip-flopping label that his Republican opponents are trying, with some success, to drape around his neck.
"It was a charge that was used against me," Bush said. ‘"No new taxes’? Remember that? I don’t think it’s significant. He’s got a record as governor, and people change their mind. I don’t take that criticism very seriously."
He said he was holding back on an official endorsement "for no particular reason."
Party leaders, he said, traditionally do not endorse in primaries – "I’ve tried to stay out of that" – but Republicans have no rule, spoken or otherwise, about endorsements during the primary phase of a campaign.
Bush said he could support any of the Republican candidates in the race, although Paul, running strong in Iowa and elsewhere, gave him pause.
"I want to see Obama beaten," he said. "I just don’t believe Ron Paul can get the nomination."
The possibility of Paul running as a third-party candidate reminded Bush of his own 1992 reelection effort, when the third-party candidacy of Dallas businessman H. Ross Perot probably made him a one-term president. "H. Ross," he mused. "That son of a … gun."
joe.holley@chron.com

http://blog.chron.com/rickperry/2011...gest-advocate/