Bush Sets Key Role For a Longtime Family Foot Soldier

Andrew H. Card Jr., the man who Texas Gov. George W. Bush has named to be White House chief of staff if Bush becomes president, has been a loyal foot soldier in the cause of the Bush family political dynasty almost from the beginning.

In 1980, as a young, up-and-coming Massachusetts state legislator, Card was the Massachusetts chairman and part-time driver for Bush's father, former president George Bush, in the elder Bush's first, unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Eight years later, Card was at the helm of the Bush operation in the crucial New Hampshire primary. He helped turn back the challenge of Sen. Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) and clear a path to the White House for the then-vice president.

He went on to serve as deputy White House chief of staff for three years before the elder Bush named him secretary of transportation, an appointment widely seen as a reward for Card's loyalty.

When Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida in the summer of 1992, just as Bush was preparing to take on Democratic nominee Bill Clinton, the president put Card in charge of the relief effort and the task of trying to repair the political damage from what was regarded as an initially sluggish government response to the disaster.

When Bush lost that 1992 race for reelection, it was Card who was named the outgoing administration's chief liaison to the incoming Clinton team.

Now it is the younger Bush who has turned to Card, just as he turned to another of his father's old allies, former defense secretary Richard B. Cheney, to be his running mate. But in tapping Card, 53, to head his White House team, according to those who know Card, the Texas governor has sought out a man who is nothing like his father's first White House chief of staff, John Sununu.

Card was Sununu's deputy. But unlike the acerbic Sununu, a former New Hampshire governor, "Andy brings street smarts, firmness, yet humility, to that post," said Rich Bond, a veteran GOP operative who has known Card since the 1970s.

"He would always circle back, he was good at returning phone calls, he was always very diplomatic," Bond said, describing Card's style.

Recalling the time that Card informed him that he had been passed over for the job of chairman of the Republican National Committee, Bond added: "He did his best to temper bad news, and I think he did that with lots of people. . . . Andy Card is a unifier."

If he is put in charge of a second Bush White House, Card may need all of those personal, political and diplomatic skills. The next president will have to deal with an almost evenly divided Congress after a muddled election that produced no clear mandate.

As a Republican from Democratic-dominated Massachusetts, Card knows what it is like to be in the minority and how to deal with the opposition.