Times on the trail
POLITICAL POINTS | 8.16 8:45 AM
Bush Makes a Final Swing Before Convention
By CARL HULSE
After a five-day cross-country campaign swing and a visit to hurricane-damaged Florida, President Bush will concentrate on the Midwest battleground states in a series of trips that begins today.
The president will speak to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cincinnati about troop shifts and head to Michigan. He will follow with trips to Wisconsin and Minnesota while slipping in a stop in Pennsylvania. The president will then go to his ranch to hunker down and prepare for the upcoming Republican National Convention with some quick trips to select locations.
Mr. Bush appeared to enjoy last week's marathon campaign tour that took him through Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and western Iowa before he headed home. Mark Knoller, the White House correspondent for CBS radio, calculated the trip at 7,200 miles. Mr. Bush often commented on the large, enthusiastic crowds he encountered along the way.
But the tour exposed one of the challenges confronting Mr. Bush. In conservative North Florida, thousands of people lined the Gulf Coast highway to wave as the president's motorcade swept by and conservative Bush backers shook the rafters of a coliseum in Phoenix.
But the enthusiasm dipped as he hit the Pacific Coast. The Bush campaign did not even schedule a public appearance during a stop in California to raise money and polls have the president well behind in that state. In Washington and Oregon, people came out of their offices to watch the motorcade pass but there were definite knots of protesters as well.
At the same time, an outdoor rally for Senator John Kerry attracted an estimated 40,000 in Portland, far outdrawing the invitation-only crowd Mr. Bush spoke to simultaneously at a suburban high school. Bush campaign officials attributed the Kerry crowd to the presence of the group Bon Jovi and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, but they were clearly rattled by the turnout.
There's no doubt Mr. Bush has his base stirred up, with his energetic rallies marked by the heavy presence of conservative Christians. But it is a risky strategy to try to win strictly on the basis of his base. And it appears he has some work to do in converting independents and swing Democrats and Republicans outside the nation's conservative centers. |
