BUSH SWIRLS IN NEW RULES

Drug Question Tests Electorate

A decade ago, the kind of turbulence that hit Texas Gov. George W. Bush's
campaign this week might have threatened to knock a candidate out of the
presidential race. For better or worse, President Clinton has changed the
rules.

Bush's campaign was brought to earth over the question of whether he ever
used illegal drugs, and even some supporters believe he will be hurt by the
events of this week. Whether the damage is serious or long-lasting was not
clear Friday -- and the candidate quickly shifted back to his
pre-turbulence posture of vowing not to answer questions on the issue.

The episode revealed a Bush campaign that, however smoothly it was
operating, could be knocked off stride by one ingenious and unanticipated
question. But it also showed how a decade of scandal politics -- and the
example of Clinton -- has taught politicians not to crumble when the first
crisis hits their campaigns.

There once was a familiar pattern when political scandal erupted: the media
feeding frenzy, the campaign deathwatch and the inevitable scene in a hotel
ballroom where a contrite or defiant candidate withdrew from the race. That
was the way it played out in 1987 when Gary Hart was hit with allegations
of marital infidelity.

But after a 1992 campaign in which Clinton weathered scandals involving
infidelity, the draft and smoking marijuana, and then the past year in
which he survived the Monica Lewinsky affair, that old pattern has been
replaced by something new.

"You can keep your head down and plow through it," said Republican
strategist Ralph Reed, a Bush adviser, "and after you have, you're a
stronger candidate because people see you're not going to be knocked out by
it."

Bush took a calculated risk by reopening the issue of when, if ever, he
used drugs. It is that the public will forgive mistakes of the distant past
if it is convinced a politician has learned from them -- and will not
repeat them?

"I think that ultimately voters will have a sense that the governor has
admitted to mistakes that were made in his youth and will fall into two
camps," a Bush adviser said Friday. "Either they respect that position or
they disagree with it, in which case they'll find another candidate. And we
feel far more will agree than disagree."

A poll for CNN and Time Magazine by Yankelovich Partners released Friday
offers some reassurance to campaign officials that the risk is worth
taking. The poll found that 84 percent of Americans said that if Bush used
cocaine in his 20s, that should not disqualify him from serving as president.

Bush also hopes to benefit from public backlash against the media. The poll
for CNN and Time found that almost three in five (58 percent) of those
surveyed said reporters should not be asking Bush questions about cocaine use.

But Bush also has gambled that he can partly answer the question without
definitively saying he did or didn't use drugs. What he did this week was
effectively deny using drugs since 1974 (when he was 28) but then refuse to
say whether he used them earlier in his life.

The danger is that after a Clinton presidency replete with evasive answers
to simple questions, Bush has created the impression with voters that he is
being cute or coy rather than forthcoming. Ultimately, say some political
analysts, Bush may be forced to offer a clear-cut answer to the drug question.

Bush campaign officials say their candidate is taking a much different
gamble by refusing to answer detailed questions about his past: Voters may
assume he engaged in behavior that never occurred. But, they say, Bush
feels strongly that he must draw the line on personal questions in order to
help change the climate of politics.

This week's furor over Bush and drugs marked the first real test of his
campaign under stress. It happened suddenly and unexpectedly.

On Wednesday, Bush had been peppered with questions from Texas reporters
about why he would not respond to repeated questions about drug use. Bush,
in forceful terms, accused reporters of succumbing to the game of forcing
politicians to disprove unfounded rumors.

Later in New Orleans, Dallas Morning News reporter Sam Attlesey told a
campaign official he wanted to ask Bush a question privately. The question
involved whether Bush would insist that appointees in a future
administration of his would be required to answer standard FBI background
questions about drug use and could he meet that standard.

Bush concluded it was a legitimate question that demanded an answer. He
later told the Dallas paper that he understood the question to be whether
someone had used drugs within the last seven years. "I will be glad to
answer that question and the answer is, `No,' " Bush said.

But when Bush and his campaign team awoke the next day, the need to clarify
his response was clear. "Once we saw the Morning News story, we realized it
left the impression that it could be as recent as seven years," an adviser
said.

So Bush told reporters Thursday morning that he could have passed the
15-year test at the time of his father's administration, which began in 1989.

By the day's end, Bush again closed the door on further questions about
drugs, a stance his advisers say he is determined to maintain.