'Right'-hand man

When Timothy Goeglein was an undergraduate in the 1980s, he saw a famous photograph of former President Theodore Roosevelt giving the commencement address at IU in 1918.\nGoeglein, who had always been interested in the relationship between politicians and the press, told a friend that if by some chance he would ever be able to work in Washington, D.C. he thought it would be remarkable to work for a president who he respects and admires as much as Roosevelt.\nLess than 20 years after he first saw that impressionable picture, Goeglein finds himself sitting and working in the same rooms Roosevelt once sat -- that includes Goegelin's boss's office, the big oval one at the south end of the building -- and not without that same sense of notability.\n"I've worked around politicians for 16 years," he said. "And this president is a truly rare politician. He's the same in private as he is in public."\nGoeglein (pronounced GAIG-line) is among the selective senior staff members of the West Wing, hired directly by President Bush's top political strategist Karl Rove. Goeglein is a special assistant to the president and the deputy director of the public liaison office.\n"It's a fancy way of saying that we're one of the three political offices at the White House, and I'm the deputy of one of the three," he said.\nMost of the time one can't throw a rock without hitting someone in Washington, D.C. who wears his title like a fashionable accessory; but not Goeglein. He's a Midwesterner to the bone: a soft-spoken and unwaveringly polite 40-year-old who looks half his age. He's a native of Fort Wayne and graduated from IU in 1986 with a journalism major and an English minor.\nAs college culminated, Goeglein worked on Capitol Hill for Indiana legislators. He interned in then-Sen. Dan Quayle's office for two summers. After college he went to work as the deputy press secretary for then-Rep. Dan Coats, who later was appointed to the vacated Senate seat after Quayle's selection for the vice presidency in 1988.\nGoeglein has worked in the White House for four years now, a number that, for a moment, seems to surprise him. He says he's often asked if working in the actual West Wing is anything like the television drama. His answer is sincere, but delicate, like he's balancing a school boy's idealism with reality, unwilling to compromise either.\n"We're rarely locked arm-and-arm, practically running through some swinging door," he chuckled. "But there is some certain level -- a very dynamic level -- about working at the White House. There's not a lot of room for error."\nBut that errorless approach to his job keeps Goeglein busy, if not hectic, and traveling often. \n"Air Force One is a wonderful way to travel," he admitted. \nHis day begins somewhere around 6:30 a.m., and he has a "working breakfast" of some sort with someone. He attends at least two senior staff meetings afterward -- one with Rove, another with the office of public liaison -- and sometimes has speaking engagements during lunch.\n"I'm the point-man for American conservatism," he said. "And it's a big house."\nGoeglein's liaison job spills over into all forms of conservatism. He deals with religious conservatives, such as evangelicals and Catholics; economic conservatives and social conservatives, like libertarians and so-called "neocons." He also deals with one-third of the major cultural institutions in America, like the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery. \n"It's a lot of work," he said, taking a breath.\n"He really does a fantastic job of serving the president," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. "He's not only relaying to us the position of the administration, but he relates back (to the administration) the issues and concerns of the people he's dealing with."\nWhile he was at IU though, Goeglein's life was expectedly less hectic. He wasn't involved in campus politics. "I was always much more focused toward journalism, toward the arts," he said.\nInstead, Goeglein spent time at the campus radio station, WIUS. He and a friend, Eric Berman, had a weekly news program.\nBerman, who is now the news director for WIBC-AM in Indianapolis, said he always enjoyed working with Goeglein. They became friends at IU, but had previously met while competing on different speech and debate teams in high school.\n"It was a radio broadcasting event," Berman said. "And senior year, I finished second in the state. Tim finished first. And when we went to IU in the fall, he told me he had this idea for a radio show."\n"The World This Sunday Night," a news recap show, and "Eye on the World," a news discussion program, aired Sunday nights on WIUS. Goeglein and Berman also did a sports program -- "From the Press Box" -- with John Anders, now a banker in Ohio.\nGoeglein's interest in politics stayed keen. Conservative writers Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Jr., Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek had a profound intellectual impact on him, he said. He was also inspired by Ronald Reagan, who he met in the summer of 1986.\n"I was able to tell him that he was the reason I was interested in public service, and the reason I was a conservative was his influence as president," Goeglein said.\nGoeglein's recipe for success, reinforced by his actual success, involves throwing two ingredients into the kettle: persistence and faith.\n"Persistence is the goal," Goeglein said. "You have to be willing to work hard, but you also have to work smart. You have to be willing to enter at the ground level -- or in my case, at the basement level -- and work your way up."\nAnd his faith, he said, is the touchstone of his life, something that he said informs his personal relationships -- he and his wife, an IU alumna who has her masters in chemistry, have two sons, 8 and 6 -- as well as his professional relationships. \n"Things happen for a reason," he added. "You have to trust that if you are really interested (in something) and enjoy that area, that providence will carry you along."\n-- Contact Opinion Editor Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu.