President George W. Bush will speak at 10:20 am this morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., his first appearance at the annual conference as President.
During his presidency, Ronald Reagan attended every CPAC conference in person, with the exception of one, and he sent a recorded message to that one. He also was a frequent visitor before his election.
I can personally verify, however, that George W. Bush has been to more CPACs than just the one he is attending today, where he is certain to receive a rousing welcome and support for the troop surge in Iraq.
It was the 1988 CPAC conference. However, George W. Bush was not a speaker, rather, he was an on-site behind the scenes observer of a sort of "monitoring" operation on Jack Kemp’s campaign activities at CPAC, as his father, Vice-President George H. W. Bush and Kemp were sparing for the 1988 Presidential nomination, and conservative support, in the process that would ultimately be won by George H.W. I know because I was there…..
My friend Craig Shirley was running the operation, with plausible deniability at the direction of Lee Atwater, who was campaign manager of the Bush campaign. Craig, then a member of the ACU Board and a long-time CPAC-hand, introduced me to George W. Bush for the first time at the end of the "monitoring" at CPAC. It was late in the evening, and Craig privately asked me if I could do the additional favor of driving George W. "home."
I was a newly wed. I knew my wife really wanted to go home herself at the late hour. So, after a very long day at CPAC, addressing myself to a very patient and tired new wife, I asked Janice if she would mind if I drove the Vice-President’s son home. I did not have to wait for a verbal answer, and being a newly wed in a happy marriage, I did not feel compelled to argue with my great wife at that point in time.
So I walked back over to Craig and said, "no," can’t do it. "Got to get the wife home." I shook George W.’s hand again, he smiled, I said "goodbye!," Craig said he’d make other arrangements, and Janice and I went home.
Then George H. W. Bush became President. I got a job in his Administration, continuing my D.C. stint after working in the Reagan Administrartion. But Bush lost reelection. Janice and I left Washington and I moved back to Orange County. And the guy I wouldn’t drive home eventually became Governor of Texas and a two-term President of the United States. After 20 years, sometimes this story still mystifies me.