Who Chose George?

Monday, Jun. 21, 1999 By MICHAEL DUFFY AND NANCY GIBBS
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Of course, the old smoke-filled rooms were filthy places, for cutting deals and making threats and trading bribes, and the old bosses were not always weighing the merits when they christened their candidates. It is hard to watch the Bush anointment and not be shocked by the sheer, almost undemocratic nerve of it, and the risk that this could all blow up and leave the party with a choice among broken and, other than Steve Forbes, penniless understudies. "No matter how much support you get from insiders, activists, fund raisers, you still gotta run the gauntlet," says longtime Republican strategist Charles Black. "You gotta earn it at the polls. That's the beauty of the system. You won't know until February how he's gonna do."

And so the curtain goes up on a race that may just be beginning, or may already be in its last act. "If he does well, it's his. If he doesn't, he could fall so fast. You could have him on the cover in June--and never hear from him again," says Steve Merksamer, a top California strategist who is working for Forbes. "You wonder if they are building a schoolhouse here out of straw. It's big and shiny, built in 90 days, but the contractor put it together in a way that when the first stiff wind comes, the house blows down." For Bush supporters, that's their greatest fear. For his opponents, that's their strongest hope.