Oliphant: Bush campaign launch stumbles

[dw]

In the Boston Globe 3/7/2004

Obviously, President Bush planned it all this way.

For the week when his reelection campaign was launched with the most immense TV advertising campaign ever, the idea was to have his administration top it all off with an announcement that there was almost no job growth last month.

You can also just imagine the meetings during which his advisers plotted to ignite a controversy over how tasteless it would be to use images of the destruction and death from 9/11 as reelection props. Another round of mass murder in Iraq was icing on the cake.

The grand themes of his campaign rollout were supposed to be trust, a return to prosperity, security, and reassurance.

Feeling better already?

MORE

[fujiyama]

1. What WON'T he exploit

to win this election? He's already exploiting the victims of 9/11 and said so brazenly.

[Gman]

2. He still thinks God put him in the WH

"God loves you, and I love you," the president said during a particularly fatuous promotion of his efforts to give government money to church groups that discriminate in their hiring. "And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about the future can hear.

Huh?

[enough]

3. "both of us" ?????

Bush* and God?

He really has gone round the bend.

[struggle4progress]

6. He's chosen ...

his next VP: "Bush/G*d 2004"

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. I always...

...saw God as more top-of-the-ticket material.

Still, Lyndon ran as Kennedy's VP, and had an opinion of himself little short of God....

Or is it a ticket-balancing thing?
Pure goodness and omniscience with petty evil with stupidity?`

[Gman]

7. I have a relative who's moderately schizophrenic

and at the time actually believed he was having a fist fight with Satan his self. I really think Bush is likely schizophrenic and because of the illness thinks he actually communicates with God on a regular basis.

[mediaman007]

8. If God put him in the White House,

why does he need to do all the fund raising. I suppose he's hedging his bet.

[izzie]

4. I always said these men should get out of that bubble they live in.

I am sure living like Nero goes to their heads. They should be like Truman and walk around town at home or DC or Key west and hear people.Clinton used to do it and I hope Kerry will. When you only have yes men around you, you just do not hear what is going on. Bush, we know from all we have read, has a closed mind and nothing new enters, Even in college he showed this as many in college do. It is usually the time for new things to enter your mind. Lets hope Kerry does better. He is sort of up-tight but not with a closed mind.He seems like the true New Englander in style.Does any one think Bush will use the ship pictures or the Iraq ones? FR seems to be waiting for them.

[Lauren2882]

5. Good article.

I'm always happy when a journalist is willing to go against the (increasingly less popular) conventional wisdom that Bush and his team are so powerful that they'll be able to, somehow, pull this off. The truth is that he's extremely vulnerable, and I'm glad to see more and more people saying it.