Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 13, 1992 TAG: 9202130060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HARRY F. ROSENTHAL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
FIRST LADY OUTRANKS HUSBAND IN HEARTS
With a whole firmament of politicians to choose from, George Bush tapped his wife, Barbara, to introduce his re-election announcement Wednesday. Small wonder: She's the popular one in the First Family.Wherever they go, she gets the warmest reception, a fact not lost on Bush, who invokes her name more and more as his own ratings sink. Some say he is riding her coattails at a time when he needs all the help he can get.
"Nobody doesn't like Barbara Bush," said a villager in Warner, N.H. when she campaigned there last week in advance of Wednesday's formal declaration.
In December, Barbara Bush topped the list of most admired women, coming in ahead of Mother Teresa. Her husband was the most admired man. It was the eighth time in 45 years that the president and first lady led the poll.
On the campaign trail, she was greeted with this sign:
"We like you, Barbara! But you're sleeping with the enemy."
When they announce their candidacy, politicians are usually introduced by other politicians. On Wednesday that honor didn't fall to Vice President Dan Quayle, who was there, or members of the Cabinet or Republican bigwigs, but to Barbara Bush.
"I'm so grateful for this opportunity to say a few words about George Bush," she began. "You think of George as the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, and I am proud to say, so do I."
Her speech then went into an area no other introducer could match.
"I'd like to tell you about the George Bush I've known for half a century, the man I've raised our children with. . . . I knew George as a straight and handsome teen-ager in a Navy flier's uniform, and I know him now as they play `Hail to the Chief' when he strides into a room."
In that half-century she has grown into "everybody's grandmother," as she puts it. And the president trades on it.
When his subject is domestic issues, or sensitive matters with which he feels uncomfortable, he mentions his wife.
"When Barbara holds an AIDS baby in her arms, she's trying to express the compassion that both of us feel," he has said.