Kinder, gentler Bush anticipated
NEW YORK – President Bush’s bare-knuckled response to the Sept. 11 terrorists sent his poll numbers soaring. Three years later, Rambo needs a makeover.
This week’s four-day Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden provides the last best chance for Bush to soften his macho side – and bolster what some of his closest aides concede has been an unexpectedly difficult re-election campaign.
“I’m nervous,” a senior Bush official told the New York Daily News, “and I’m heading toward worried.”
Even with Bush’s enormous advantage of incumbency and a Democratic opponent still struggling to convince voters he’s a credible replacement, the race is still considered a tossup by most independent analysts.
Bush-Cheney campaign aides are breathing more easily with recent polls showing Bush has gained some momentum and now leads Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry. That’s considered a significant development because the president also is likely to get at least a modest bounce from the convention.
Some campaign strategists, in fact, believe Bush could get a larger bump from his acceptance speech but are consciously trying to lower expectations.
Aides steadfastly believe Bush will be re-elected, but continue to fret about the downside impact of the economy and Iraq, especially because he cannot control what happens with those two mega-issues in the weeks remaining until Election Day.
But handlers say Bush can do something about his perceived testosterone excess that has hurt him with critical swing voters, especially women, and made his conservative base edgy.
“Wartime or no wartime, nobody likes a cocky President,” a close Bush confidant told the News. “He soars when he’s leading us. He just sinks when he’s puffing his chest up. The cockiness … cuts into undecideds and independents.”
“He’s developed a reputation as a hard-ass warrior,” a senior Bush campaign consultant echoed. “People want that when he’s fighting terrorists, but it’s taken over his image. He has to show the good-guy, compassionate Bush that’s gotten lost.”
The kinder, gentler presidential rehab officially begins Thursday, when Bush accepts the GOP nomination in a primetime speech that is tailored to a few million undecided voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri and a handful of other battleground states.
In his speech, Bush will commit himself to staying the course in Iraq, but will also lay out what aides say is a detailed blueprint of his second-term policy priorities. He will offer himself as America’s agent of reform, vowing to overhaul Social Security, health care, the tax code and intelligence operations.
A senior Bush source told the News the most closely held section of Bush’s speech centers on a major proposed simplification of the income tax code.
The Bush-as-reformer thesis is designed to convince undecided voters that unlike his father, who was damaged by the common perception that he lacked “the vision thing,” this Bush is smarter and more forward-looking than the lightweight stereotype peddled by his most virulent critics.
“The theme of this convention is that Bush is not just a strong commander-in-chief, but a thoughtful one,” said a senior political adviser, adding that the speech seeks to resurrect the largely discarded “compassionate conservative” theme of Bush’s 2000 campaign.
A former senior counselor to the first President Bush was even blunter about Bush’s task, saying, “He’s got to appear thoughtful and likable. He needs to find a way to remind people why they used to like him.”
First lady Laura Bush has been preparing the ground for the presidential makeover for weeks. Below the national radar, the first lady tells local reporters at every campaign stop that her spouse has a compassionate side obscured by the need to be tough on terrorists and Iraqi guerrillas.
Earlier this summer, President Bush’s chief political guru, Karl Rove, quietly expanded the first lady’s campaign schedule. “We need her out there,” a high-ranking Bush source shrugged. “If he were doing better, she wouldn’t be out as much. We’re not doing well – you may have noticed.”