The Minister of Ministries
BARNES, FRED
The Minister of Ministries George W. Bush launches his faith-based initiative. BY FRED BARNES SHORTLY AFTER the inauguration, Vice President Dick Cheney explained to Stephen Goldsmith, the former...
...Washington can potentially play a useful role, Dilulio says...
...F rom a social science standpoint, the jury is still out...
...The Bush-DiIulio relationship was sealed in June 2000 after Bush had won the Republican presidential nomination...
...The chief characteristic of highly effective outreach ministries is that they form partnerships with other groups, often secular ones...
...Gore gave a tepid speech on the subject in May 1999...
...DiIulio skipped the meeting, instead taking his three kids to New York to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway...
...Once more, the subject was social policy, not politics...
...He is a prolific writer (including as a contributing editor to this magazine...
...When Bush collected a group of advisers in Austin in early January to talk about faith-based programs, Dilulio seemed unlikely to be Bushs pick...
...He was engaged for the full two hours, DiIulio says...
...Both have Ivy League backgrounds, but while Bush was an indifferent student, DiIulio was a star pupil of James Q. Wilson at Harvard and went on to become a professor at Princeton and now the University of Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Pennsylvania...
...Hes been studying them for a half-dozen years, notably through his Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at Penn...
...However , Dilulio adds, theres something going on here...
...DiIulio was known to Bush through his chief political strategist, Karl Rove...
...It was only months earlier that DiIulio had met with Al Gore and advised the Democratic candidate on his own plans for supporting faith-based programs...
...That morning, he called DiIulio, who was vacationing at the Jersey shore, to thank him for his advice on the speech...
...The idea of building on grass-roots ministries is promising but not proven...
...What has DiIulio learned that others havent about faith-based projects to aid the poor...
...Later, in July 1999, Bush delivered a speech on compassionate conservatism in Indianapolis...
...Y ou do^ make a counter -proposal to the president, he said...
...In other words, empirical evidence that lives will be improved is lacking...
...But in two days of talks with senior Bush aides, he became convinced the president intends to give strong emphasis to the program...
...What pleased DiIulio most was the absence of politics...
...Bush had come to Philadelphia for a speech, and DiIulio was asked to wait around to chat afterwards...
...But, from their first meeting, he found Bush to be different...
...DiIulio was reluctant initially, particularly because of his friendship with Goldsmith...
...On the contrary, such work can help protect the religious and sacred characteristics of their organizations, Dilulio insists...
...He wanted the words Faith-Based to come first, since expanding efforts by religious groups is whats new and signifi cant about the program...
...Id read his stuff for years, Rove says...
...Bush was in the whats good, what works, and think-big box, says DiIulio, which was what attracted him to Bush in the first place...
...Second, running these ministries does not conict with saving souls, the main job of religious groups...
...Bush is low-key and eager to please...
...Cheney was surprised...
...Bush aides wanted it to be the Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives...
...Bush is from West Texas, Dilulio from South Philadelphia, where he still lives...
...BY FRED BARNES SHORTLY AFTER the inauguration, Vice President Dick Cheney explained to Stephen Goldsmith, the former mayor of Indianapolis, how the new White House office of faith-based initiatives would be set up...
...Bush told an aide last week, speaking of Dilulio, I love that guy . Dilulio said of Bush: I have total faith in this mans heart...
...F or Dilulio, strengthening local ministries and community efforts is intellectually , morally, and in civic terms what I care most about...
...A very smart decision on their part...
...And his experience with politicians had been unsatisfactory...
...Normally, DiIulio says, I don t hang with Republicans...
...Dilulios academic specialty is public administration, but hes made his name in criminology and social policy...
...Both are working in new fields...
...The last problem was the title of the office...
...Oh, yes, Bush s nickname for Dilulio is Big John...
...Goldsmith, the odd man out, will be an unpaid adviser and chairman of the Corporation for National Service, which runs Ameri-corps and other volunteer programs...
...This is a signature project of the Bush presidency, touted early and often by Bush during the campaign...
...Finally, Goldsmith called, and he agreed to come...
...First, he says, one has to be realistic about what, say, a church project can achieve...
...A half- dozen calls went unanswered...
...So John Dilulio, a Democrat, Catholic, scholar, and one-time adviser to Al Gore, became the assistant to the president in charge of faith-based initiatives...
...But Goldsmith, Bushs first choice to head the office, had his own ideas, a counterproposal that included bestowing cabinet status on the head of it...
...And DiIulio seems perfectly suited to run it: He knows more about grassroots programs run by churches than anyone and believes fervently in them...
...Its what the good nuns said...
...As president, DiIulio figured, Bush would surprise a lot of people...
...DiIulio is intense and intent on persuading...
...He also worried that Goldsmiths demise might mean a trimmed-down program...
...They invite you in, do 20 minutes, and hand you off...
...Do the right thing in the right way and youd be amazed what you can achieve...
...To get DiIulio on board, the Bushies gave in...
...Bush and DiIulio are an odd couple and a mutual admiration society...
...And he has...
...Bush failed in the oil business but succeeded as president of the Texas Rangers baseball team...
...Bush wanted to know what a faith-based initiative would involve and what programs might work...
...If that was the case, DiIulio said, they would have to get someone else to run it...
...But when an aide to then governor Bush tried to invite DiIulio to a meeting in Austin in early 1999, he didnt respond...
...Then on day five of the Bush presidency, he got a call from a White House aide offering him the faith-based job...
...They conferred for two hours, first just the two of them, then with Goldsmith and Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge...
...The two almost didnt connect...
...But its not a slam dunk...
...Third, the country is crawling with small, unsung but effective programs that could reach more people if they had government and private funding...
Vol. 6 • February 2001 • No. 21
