No one has done more to roll back affirmative action than Ward Connerly of California, author of that state's successful Proposition 209. In the past several months, at least three Republican presidential contenders -- Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle, and Lamar Alexander -- called to set up meetings with Connerly to discuss their positions on affirmative action. Connerly happily met with all three. "Every one of them," Connerly says, "made it clear he endorsed my position." In return, Connerly made something clear to Forbes, Quayle, and Alexander: "I am leaning toward George Bush," Connerly told them straightforwardly. "I think the world of him."
George W. Bush, the Republican front-runner, professes to feel the same way about Ward Connerly. At one point, Bush told Connerly he couldn't wait till the two of them could get together over lunch and talk about affirmative action. Except, as it turns out, Bush could wait. And has been waiting. "My staff has been calling his staff for six weeks now, trying to arrange a meeting," Connerly says. "All I can tell you is that a meeting has not been arranged. His staff certainly knows where I am."
So far, Connerly has done his best to see the apparent snub in the best possible light. "I really don't know if he's putting me off or not," Connerly says. "He said he wanted to meet with me. All I know is that if I were in his position and I wanted to meet with somebody, my staff had better work it out." Still, after six weeks, even the gentlemanly Connerly clearly is struggling not to take Bush's "scheduling conflicts" personally. "I'm a very loyal Republican who is not out there on the fringes," he says. "I'm an establishment kind of guy: I believe the governor when he says he's against quotas and preferences and setasides and guaranteed outcomes. And if that be true, it seems to me the logical extension of all that is that he would support efforts to eliminate all of those things." Connerly doesn't seem sure what to make of Bush's elusiveness. "I'll say this, I don't want to support somebody who doesn't want my support."