ONE OF THEM:

Bush bonded early with evangelicals (WAYNE SLATER, March 12, 2005, The Dallas Morning News)

As George W. Bush was coming to terms with his own religious faith, he also began to understand how important an active base of religious conservatives would be to his political future.

As an emissary to evangelicals in 1988, Mr. Bush sought to bring religious conservatives – a group he eventually enlisted to win office himself – aboard his father's presidential campaign.

"He came to my office at Criswell College to ask me to work on his dad's campaign and possibly to go to Washington if his dad won," said Richard Land, an influential Southern Baptist leader.

The elder Mr. Bush did win the White House, only to lose four years later when support from Christian conservatives waned.

The younger Mr. Bush, though, continued to cultivate a network of influential evangelical support including Mr. Land.

Doug Wead, a Bush adviser in 1988, said the son's born-again experience gave him the ability to communicate with Christian evangelicals in a way his father never could. He said the younger Mr. Bush was a quick study who concluded that religious conservatives were the key to future political success.

"He would just look at those [campaign] memos and salivate about Texas," Mr. Wead said. "It was like a missing piece for him. He was thinking, 'This is huge for me. I'm one of them.'

"People miss how calculated, how sophisticated and nuanced his approach to evangelicals really is," Mr. Wead continued. "You think it's all spontaneous, but he's a very disciplined creature."

Gee, you mean it wasn't all just dumb luck?

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 22, 2005 11:56 PM