NYT: Between 2 First Families, a Complicated Rapport

[kskiska]

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

(snip)

"Bush and Reagan had a very amiable relationship, and he had access to anything Reagan had, but Mrs. Bush felt she had been slighted by Mrs. Reagan," said one former Reagan adviser who knows both families.

The Reagans, who moved in a circle of old Hollywood friends but were still an intensely private couple, never had the Bushes in for dinner in the private quarters of the White House, Republicans recalled.

"It's hard being second lady," said a person who worked for both the Reagans and the elder Bushes. "And Barbara Bush did a hell of a good job at it. She stayed back and was deferential. But what I've found is that the wives of political people have long memories. They tend not to forget."

The relationship between the families dates from the 1980 campaign, when Mr. Reagan and George H. W. Bush were political rivals running for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. Bush accused Mr. Reagan of promoting "voodoo economics," a charge that so angered Mr. Reagan that he later did not want Mr. Bush on the ticket with him. But when a plan for a "co-presidency" with former President Gerald R. Ford fell apart at the party convention, Mr. Reagan and his aides turned to Mr. Bush as one of the only men left standing, according to accounts from Richard V. Allen and other Reagan advisers at the time.

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http://nytimes.com/2004/06/09/politics/09families.html