The Campaign
Adam Nagourney has a must-read look at the Bush campaign and how it’s gearing up for 2004. Key excerpts:
President Bush’s political advisers have set in motion an aggressive re-election machine, building a national network of get-out-the-vote workers and amassing a pile of cash for a blanket advertising campaign expected to begin around the time Democrats settle on their candidate early next year, party officials said.-- PoliPundit…
The decision to delay the start of advertising until about the time the Democrats settle on a nominee is a rejection of what had been a central element of President Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign. Mr. Clinton began advertising 16 months before Election Day, in an effort to define the election before the Republicans chose an opponent.
Republicans said that would be a waste of money, given the battle taking place among the Democrats. Instead, aides to Mr. Bush said, their campaign would begin spending when a Democratic nominee starts to emerge from the primary battle, probably battered and very likely almost broke.
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Advisers to Mr. Bush said they expected the campaign to hit its fund-raising target of $170 million by the end of the winter.
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On Oct. 4, the campaign will bring together about 500 volunteers in Atlanta to train them in how to organize precincts, canvass voters and get them to the polls in Georgia. Similar events will eventually take place across the country as thecampaign moves to place organizers on the ground in virtually every precinct in the nation.
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“This is the first time I know of that an incumbent president has undertaken a true grass-roots effort that penetrates precincts and neighborhoods instead of relying entirely on image and media,” said [wunderkind] Ralph Reed, chairman of the state Republican Party in Georgia and an adviser to the Bush campaign.
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Members of the president’s political team said they were not overly worried about signs of deterioration in his standing. Mr. Bush is still in a stronger position now in the polls, they said, than either Ronald Reagan or Mr. Clinton was at this point in his first term.
In addition, the Democratic attacks on Mr. Bush in the last few weeks have to a large extent gone unanswered, one price of Mr. Bush’s effort to present himself as unconcerned about what the Democrats are doing. And the political calendar means that Mr. Bush can capitalize on an enviable platform to rebut the Democrats in January: His State of the Union Message is expected to be delivered right around the time of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.