Robert Mosbacher, Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Adam Mosbacher, Jr. is a Houston businessman and Republican politician. He is the president of the family's Mosbacher Energy Company.
Son of Robert A. Mosbacher, he is also the current president of OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation), an independent U.S. government agency.
Mosbacher ran unsuccessfully in the 1997 Houston mayoral election, losing to Lee Brown. He received 48 percent of the vote in the run-off while spending a record-breaking $4 million on his bid (Brown spent $2.1 million).
Mosbacher faced controversy in his run, living outside Houston, in West University Place, for 11 years and professing an abiding interest in federal and state issues rather than local concerns.
He also spent $2.9 million of his own money running unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 1984, losing to Phil Graham, and Texas lieutenant governor in 1990, losing to Bob Bullock. In 1984 he had defended abortion rights, but in the 1990 race he had switched to the anti-abortion side ([1]).
In 1993, he wrote the book Deep In The Heart: A Remedy For An Ailing Texas. In this he recommended that poor mothers who have additional children out of wedlock be punished with a 30 percent cut in welfare cash payments while continuing to receive coupons for baby food and supplies.
Robert Mosbacher, Jr. serves as a director of Devon Energy and Chase Bank, Houston. He is also a director of The Methodist Hospital and of the Salvation Army. He is founder and co-chairman of Rebuilding Together Houston.
He serves on the boards of the Greater Houston Area Chapter of the American Red Cross, Center for Houston's Future, Trust for an Early Education and the Society for the Performing Arts. He serves as a trustee of the South Texas College of Law and chairman of PreSchool for All ([2]).
Earlier in his career, Mosbacher, Jr. helped to launch the Reagan administration’s Private Sector Initiatives Program, and was appointed by President Reagan to three successive Presidential Task Forces on Private Sector Initiatives during the 1980s. He served as Chairman of the Board of the Texas Department of Human Services from 1989 to 1991, and as Chairman of the Texas Governors’ Welfare Reform Task Force in 1988. During the 1970s, he worked on the staff of Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee.
Mosbacher received his law degree from Southern Methodist University and his bachelor's degree from Georgetown University, where his daughter Jane currently attends.
In a notable event, Karl Rove was fired from the 1992 George Herbert Walker Bush campaign for trashing Robert Mosbacher, Jr., who was the chief fundraiser for the campaign and an avowed Bush loyalist. Rove planted a negative story with the controversial, right-wing columnist Robert Novak. In 1992, "Sources close to the former president George H.W. Bush say Karl Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted" (Esquire Magazine, January 2003). As Novak provided some evidence of Rove's motive in his column describing former senator Phil Gramm's later firing of Mosbacher: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher". Mosbacher maintains that "Rove is the only one with a motive to leak this. We let him go. I still believe he did it."
Robert Adam Mosbacher, Jr. and his wife Catherine have three children--Peter, Jane, and Meredith.
