Q: And there are people in the White House from essentially the day after the inauguration who were thinking in terms of, how are we going to get from here to 2004 with a clear majority rather than a very contested majority. I’m thinking of people on the White House staff like Karl Rove, and then people who were still in the political community like Ken Mehlman. And I wonder, as domestic policy advisor, did you feel like what of what you needed to pay attention to how is what we’re doing now going to lead us to successful conclusion to the first term, meaning reelection?
SPELLINGS: Well, you know, as my friend Karl Rove often says, and I heartily agree, you know, good policy makes good politics. And what I’m reminded of, and this was clear in 2000, and [00:10:00] was true in 2004, and I think we’ve drifted from this, is how meaty, how substantive, how dense our policy proposals and recommendations were. The standard was, not only did you need to have an idea, you had to describe how much it cost, where you were going to, you know, get the money for it. I mean, just a standard that goes way beyond kind of the bumper sticker kind of politics that maybe we sometimes see today, just the level of expectation, and certainly when you’re in the White House, I mean the standard of care for a sitting President of the United States, as far as the doability and the practicality and the reality of policymaking, not to mention the fact that it has to be anchored in your record for the first four years, is just a different level of ballgame than, you know, rhetoric solely.
Q: And No Child Left Behind was really, I mean, a truly bipartisan legislative accomplishment. [00:11:00]
SPELLINGS: It truly was.
Q: How did that come about, because you ordinarily think of presidents in this era of polarized politics as operating from their base in Congress, their base in the country, but No Child Left Behind seemed to be very different.
SPELLINGS: Yeah, and I think, you know, you talked about political characters, you know, Mark McKinnon, who did the president’s media in the 2000 campaign. I mean I think — and I believe Karl feels this way also, that education — as you are well aware, it was a very close election, you know, had something to do with, you know, the outcome of the election. I mean, I think people were not used to seeing a Republican talking that way about a kitchen table issue like that. And that engendered, I think, trust, and an opportunity that the late Senator [Edward] Kennedy and Congressman [George] Miller and others, the Democrats, saw in President Bush [00:12:00]. In the immediate aftermath of the election, then Governor Bush hosted a luncheon. I remember Congressman Miller, I met him for the first time when Bush invited him prior to the inaugural, to come to Texas and talk about how we were going to work together on education, which he intended to be the first issue out of the box. Now Leader [John] Boehner, then Congressman Boehner had been newly selected — or elected to lead the Education Committee, which was sort of a consolation prize for being turned out of the leadership by then leader DeLay, Speaker [Tom] Delay. And so, it was kind of a — you know, crazy set of circumstances that brought these four, you know, principals around this issue. Bush demonstrated very early his commitment to lead out on this. I’ll never forget the first week of the White House, you know, we hosted, you know, members — the Big Four, members of the congressional leadership [00:13:00] that were going to be empowered to act on his behalf on No Child Left Behind. You know, we hosted them for a movie night at the White House. They visited a school together. And I think that was a very unique thing for a Republican president to do, to day one, lead with reforming education, No Child Left Behind on behalf of poor minority students. It wasn’t standard stock and, you know, fare, for a Republican.
Q: If I remember rightly, the movie was Thirteen Days —
SPELLINGS: It was Thirteen Days.
Q: — and Senator Kennedy was invited to watch that movie about his —
SPELLINGS: Brother.
Q: — older brother — two older brothers.
SPELLINGS: Two older brothers, and — even, it was what I used to call, “pinch me moments,” I’ll never forget that, this was the first week of my job at the White House, seeing Senator Kennedy and President Bush sitting on the front row together, in the White House movie theater, which as you know, Mike, is right off the colonnade, you know, mere feet from the Oval Office where virtually the entire movie Thirteen Days takes place. [00:14:00] Pretty surreal.
Q: Good politics — or good policy makes good politics. How did No Child Left Behind translate into good politics in 2004?
SPELLINGS: Well, it allowed us to talk to some of the key, you know, swing voter groups, women, Hispanics — you know, and you know the numbers. I mean, President Bush, and then Governor Bush had, you know, the high water mark of Republicans, you know, gaining support from the Hispanic community, you know, has been by George W. Bush and probably by his brother, Jeb, in Florida. And it’s, you know, deteriorated since. And so, you know, he had not only credibility on these issues, but had a track record and we had results. I mean, we were being — we, Texas, were being heralded as, you know, real gap closers, and putting the needs of Hispanic students, you know, prominently in the forefront. And we enjoyed support of many of the [00:15:00] civil rights groups accordingly.
And so that was a very, you know, different dynamic, and I think people, you know, saw something different in that. So Hispanics, women obviously are the — you know, often the primary consumers of education, on behalf of their children, and obviously teachers are, you know, predominantly a female workforce. So it had a lot of kind of residual political effects, but mainly it was good policy on behalf of our country.