Monday, January 05, 2004
The Smokescreen
Bush is drawing up a positive, soft-focus and upbeat campaigning platform portraying him as the candidate of national unity.
Senior figures close to Bush have spent months examining previous presidential campaigns in an effort to shape a winning strategy against a potentially tricky electoral backdrop. They have settled on an approach echoing Ronald Reagan's dreamlike 'morning in America' re-election campaign of 1984, which successfully portrayed another divisive Republican President as a moderate 'father of the nation' in a series of television adverts which were light on actual politics but heavy on soft-focus camera work.
More surprisingly, Bush's team has also drawn lessons from Bill Clinton's successful 1996 campaign, which depicted the then incumbent as someone who was focused on doing his job, passing laws and making decisions, rather than taking part in a political campaign - what is called a 'Rose Garden strategy'.
'Americans don't really like politics, so the longer a president can put that off, the longer he can look like he's governing instead of politicking, and the better off he will be,' said Bruce Reed, a domestic policy adviser to Clinton for the 1996 campaign.
In an effort to portray the President as a man above the political fray, White House aides, led by Bush's chief strategist Karl Rove, have lined up a series of politically neutral but eye-catching policy initiatives to be unveiled during this month's State of the Union address to Congress.
Among the ideas being trailed in the US media is a suggestion that Bush will announce plans to return an American to the moon. 'We want to have the President talk about an important national goal that is big and a unifying theme,' one aide said.
The calculation is that Bush's so-called apolitical approach will find favor with floating voters in crucial states such as Florida and Michigan, especially when compared to the more straightforwardly political stances taken by Dean.
Things to watch out for.
posted by chris at 1:57 PM
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