Peter Teely obit

Peter Teeley, aide and confidant to George H.W. Bush, dies at 84

As Bush’s press secretary during the 1980 presidential primary, he coined the phrase “voodoo economics” to deride the supply-side policies promoted by Ronald Reagan. 

He was not on the list.

Peter B. Teeley, who made a lasting entry in the political lexicon during the 1980 presidential primary when, as press secretary to George H.W. Bush, he came up with the term “voodoo economics” to knock the supply-side agenda of Bush’s then-rival Ronald Reagan, died Nov. 29 at a hospital in Washington. He was 84.

He had tracheal cancer, said his wife, Victoria Casey. Mr. Teeley previously survived colon cancer and two bouts of throat cancer.

Mr. Teeley, an old hand in Republican politics, was born in a shipbuilding town on the northwestern coast of England that endured heavy bombardment during World War II.

He celebrated his seventh birthday at sea en route to the United States. He became an American citizen and, ultimately, a trusted aide to a long line of local, state and national political leaders.

The most important of them was Bush, whom Mr. Teeley served as press secretary during Bush’s unsuccessful campaign for the White House in 1980, his winning bid in 1988 and his time as vice president in between.

Mr. Teeley had his first taste of presidential politics working for Gerald Ford’s failed 1976 campaign. The campaign was managed by James A. Baker III, who helped bring Mr. Teeley into the Bush orbit four years later.

Bush’s inner circle used the term “B.B.I.” — “Bush Before Iowa” — to refer to the team of staffers who were with the candidate before he pulled off a surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses over Reagan, the former California governor. Reagan went on to win the 1980 Republican nomination and then the presidency with Bush as his running mate.

Mr. Teeley was “a charter member of B.B.I.,” historian Jon Meacham, the author of the Bush biography “Destiny and Power,” said in an interview. He was “an important part of a core group of people around George Bush in a campaign that made, in many ways, the Bush presidency possible, even though it was eight years later.”

According to Meacham’s book, Mr. Teeley supplied Bush with the term “voodoo economics,” a catchphrase intended to deride Reagan’s plan to invigorate the economy through tax cuts.

Mr. Teeley said he had read an editorial dismissing President Jimmy Carter’s economic policies as having been concocted by economic “witch doctors.” Inspired to lob a similar attack at Reagan, he reflected on what witch doctors do.

“And then it hit me,” Meacham quoted him as saying. “They do ‘voodoo,’ and I put it in Bush’s speech.”

The phrase, which never faded from politics, came to haunt Bush when Reagan selected him as his running mate and Democrats turned the phrase against the Republican ticket.

“He used to complain that [it] was the only memorable thing I ever wrote and it got him into trouble,” Mr. Teeley jokingly told a reporter years later.

From 1981 to 1985, during Bush’s first term as vice president, Mr. Teeley served as his press secretary. He left the job to open a public relations firm, Teeley & Associates, but returned to work for Bush during the 1988 campaign that propelled him to the presidency.

In May of that year, with Bush slipping in the polls against Democrat Michael Dukakis, Mr. Teeley resigned as chief spokesman amid internal disagreement over campaign strategy. Mr. Teeley argued for a more aggressive approach, which Bush wished to defer until later in the campaign.

“He wasn’t just a ‘yes’ person,” said David Clanton, a longtime friend of Mr. Teeley’s who worked with him when they were young staffers in the office of Sen. Robert P. Griffin (R-Michigan). “He would speak candidly to whoever he was talking with.”

Mr. Teeley remained on Bush’s 1988 campaign staff. As president, Bush named him U.S. representative to UNICEF and then ambassador to Canada. His tenure in Ottawa, where he arrived in mid-1992, was cut short when Bush lost his reelection bid to Democrat Bill Clinton that November.

Mr. Teeley later worked as vice president for government and public relations at the biotechnology company Amgen.

Peter Barry Teeley was born on Jan. 12, 1940, in Barrow-in-Furness, England, a town subjected to what was known as the “Barrow Blitz” by the German Luftwaffe during World War II.

After the war, he and his parents joined a paternal aunt in Detroit. Mr. Teeley spent the rest of his upbringing in Michigan, delivering newspapers to help his parents make ends meet. His father worked on an assembly line, according to Mr. Teeley’s wife, and his mother managed their apartment building in exchange for free rent.

Mr. Teeley studied English and journalism at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he graduated in 1965. He took jobs in public relations and advertising before venturing into politics.

The first elected officials he worked for included Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, a Democrat, and Michigan Gov. George W. Romney, a Republican.

Mr. Teeley came to Washington as an aide to Griffin and later worked for Sen. Jacob K. Javits (R-New York) before joining the Ford campaign.

Mr. Teeley’s marriages to Eileen Stempien, Sandra Evans and Valerie Hodgson ended in divorce.

Besides Casey, his wife of 23 years, survivors include two daughters from his first marriage, Susan Risi and Laura Stanley; two daughters from his third marriage, Adrienne Teeley and Randall Teeley; a daughter from his fourth marriage, Rosa Casey-Teeley; and two granddaughters.

With co-author Philip Bashe, Mr. Teeley wrote the book “The Complete Cancer Survival Guide” (2000). Bush provided a foreword.

Mr. Teeley was found to have colon cancer — his first cancer diagnosis — in 1991 and became gravely ill during treatment. Bush, then serving as president, sent one of his physicians to oversee Mr. Teeley’s care and personally called the intensive care unit to check on his friend.

In the aftermath of his illness, Mr. Teeley drew on his experience at UNICEF to found the Children’s Charities Foundation. Since its establishment in 1994, the group has distributed $10.5 million across the Washington area and has provided more than 50,000 new winter coats to needy children, according to the organization. One of its signature fundraising events was the BB&T Classic college basketball tournament.

“One thing I learned when I got ill,” Mr. Teeley told Washingtonian magazine in 1995, “is your spirit and your health are better when you’re working on worthwhile things for the future.”