When people ask Roland Betts how a New York Democrat can be such a good friend of President Bush, he whips out a ready answer. "Which would you prefer: my being close to him, or some right-wing zealot being close to him?" Mr. Betts said in a recent interview. "Who do you want to have his ear? So it's not a bad thing. Maybe I give him a little balance."
It was Mr. Betts, after all, who persuaded Mr. Bush to hold the Republican National Convention last summer in the heart of Democratic America, the West Side of Manhattan, and it was Mr. Betts who stuck to that decision under incoming fire from the president.
"I had an anxious year, to tell you the truth," said Mr. Betts, recalling that as the threat of protests grew, Mr. Bush took to tormenting him with comments like: "You're ruining me politically. Why did you make me come to New York?"
Mr. Betts chuckled. "It was all good-natured," he said, "but I was thinking, 'Oh my God, there's probably a grain of truth in there. Should he have gone to Tampa?'<snip>
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