Ready, set, and (almost) go for Team Bush in '04
It's nearly giddyap time for the Bush-Cheney team. As the first primaries near next year, look for the campaign to send out a surrogate team of national, state, and local officials to defend President Bush, under assault by the crowd of Democratic presidential hopefuls. "The green light," says a Bushie, "is about to come on." The plan is to use influential pols and headliners like New York Gov. George Pataki and ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani to talk for the campaign while Bush remains above the fray. "You campaign too early," says a Bushie, "and you can overpoliticize the president."
Starting in January, "supersurrogates" will join the team. They're mostly former administration big shots like Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Ari Fleischer, former Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clarke, the veep's daughter and ex-State aide Liz Cheney, and outgoing strategist Tucker Eskew. "We'll be very aggressive," says one. There's a simple goal, says campaign spokesperson Nicolle Devenish: "It allows us to create on a national level, a state level, and a local level an echo chamber for the president's agenda."
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