The Republicans

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By 1980 Bush was ready to make a desperate try for the White House. He had primarily an appointive resume to run on, but it was an equivocal recommendation. He seemed less the fellow who had held all these jobs than the man who would consent to do them. Once a walking gentleman has cast his lot with Richard Nixon over the years, even Andover straightforwardness can begin ( to look like invincible patsydom. It was in the 1980 campaign that Bush's later manner was established in people's minds -- that mishmash of cultures partly assimilated, that belongingness more yearned for than achieved, that having had too little effect in too many places -- so that different styles stumble over one another and interrupt his words when he tries to speak. He had developed a highly idiosyncratic style, surpassed only by Al Haig's. He was now the man who could say at Auschwitz, "Boy, they were big on crematoriums, weren't they?"

But other traits, more admirable, showed up in 1980 as well -- persistence, competitiveness, an unwillingness to quit. William Sloane Coffin, once Yale's chaplain, was an Andover classmate of Bush's and fellow Bones member at Yale, though they took separate paths afterward. (Coffin is now the head of SANE/ FREEZE, an antinuclear organization.) When Bush visited Yale during Coffin's chaplainship, he sent word he would like to play some squash with his old classmate. "Bring him on," Coffin crowed. They played a few games, Coffin winning and Bush getting more determined to win. Coffin was ready to call it a day, but Bush kept asking for one more game. Recalls Coffin: "Word got around the gym that Left and Right were meeting on the center court, and we had quite an audience by the end, but George wouldn't give up." Jim Baker found he had the same problem getting Bush to give up in 1980, to withdraw from the presidential race in time to position himself as a vice-presidential candidate. Bush does not yield easily, something he proved in his scrappy comeback after finishing behind both Robert Dole and Pat Robertson in this year's Iowa caucuses.

THE CONSUMMATE VICE PRESIDENT

In the Vice President's office, Bush's basic decency resurfaced. He brought dignity to the ceremonial parts of the office and handled himself with great composure during the assassination attempt on Reagan. When Ray Cline and others tried to advise him on assembling a staff of his own, Bush rightly said policy should be made in other offices; he was to be the President's confidant, not his competitor. But he did cultivate good relations with right- wing groups, which considered him suspect for his opposition to Reagan in the 1980 primaries. Thus when Bush spoke to the contra contributors cultivated by Carl ("Spitz") Channell, Channell planned to tap the same people for donations to Bush's future campaign needs. This was just one of many ties Bush's office had with right-wingers concerned about Nicaragua's "freedom fighters."