Trail Mix: The Bush campaign tried to stay a step ahead of the bad news—and Kerry groped for a bold stroke
Charles Ommanney / Contact for Newsweek
McCain joined his old friend on the stump
Newsweek
Nov.
15 issue - In late April, Bush's top campaign operatives were feeling
pretty pleased with themselves. They were crowing over Democratic
polling data showing that Kerry's negative ratings had jumped 11 points
in the last two months. The Democrats blamed the wave of Bush-Cheney
attack ads (by the end of May, BC04 would buy 49,050 spots in the
hundred top media markets; three quarters of Bush's ads were negative).
True, the Democrats would have to fault the Republicans, since they
couldn't very well blame their own candidate. Still, for the
spinmeisters at BC04, it was gratifying to see the opposition
acknowledge their good work.
advertisement
Even
better, the economic news was looking up for Bush. At the beginning of
every month, the BC04 policy director, Tim Adams, would be the bearer
of economic tidings to the morning staff meeting. For months the
job-growth numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics—an economic
measure critical to the president's re-election hopes—were anemic.
Adams had come to dread the long faces when he walked into the room.
But on April 2, a hugely relieved Adams reported 308,000 jobs created
in March, the best job growth in four years. Adams's hands were shaking
as he read off the numbers. The room erupted in cheers. The staff
meeting that day was a "laugh-a-palooza," recalled a Bush aide.
Thanks
to the ineptitude of the Kerry campaign and their own nimbleness, the
Bushites somehow managed to stay a step ahead of the bad news that
spring—for a while, at least. The sense of smugness at BC04 couldn't
last. Iraq was getting nastier by the day, and the job-growth numbers
would dip again. By any measurement, President Bush had a terrible
spring of 2004, a series of domestic and foreign-policy disasters that
would have badly shaken most modern presidencies. But through his own
willfulness, his determination never to look back and the artfulness of
his handlers (who were made to look good by comparison with their
foes), Bush defied the facts on the ground for as long as possible.
FREE VIDEO
• Behind the Bush Win NEWSWEEK's Editor Mark Whitaker discusses how the Republicans got the better of John Kerry (Courtesy of CNN)
NEWSWEEK
Reality
was biting in Iraq that April. In Fallujah, rioters, prating for the
cameras, strung up the burned and mutilated bodies of four Americans.
In Washington and New York the chattering classes were buzzing over Bob
Woodward's new book, "Plan of Attack." The Washington Post reporter had
gained extraordinary access to the pre-invasion deliberations of the
Bush White House. It did not appear, from a careful reading of the
book, that Bush's top advisers had thoroughly discussed the option of
not going to war, or whether invading Iraq might do more harm than good
in the war on terror. But Woodward did not spell out any critical
judgments, and the book could also be read to show the president's
determination. In a brilliant jujitsu move, the Bush White House
decided not to try to rebut the book, but rather to embrace it. An
aide—possibly Nicolle Devenish, the campaign communications director,
though others credited strategist Matthew Dowd—suggested they post the
book on the campaign Web site under "Suggested Reading." The strategy,
said adman Mark McKinnon with a laugh, was "love the book you're with."
Or, as he put it, "Let's love it to death."
Outfoxing
the media establishment was a favorite occupation of the Bush White
House. Press-bashing is an old Republican sport, more so in the George
W. Bush era. The president disliked press conferences. He would tease
individual reporters and give them nicknames, but he disdained the
press as a whole. As a young campaign operative working for his father
in 1988, Bush had advised his colleagues not to bother to steer
reporters away from wrong stories. He preferred to let reporters hang
themselves. At press conferences, he just assumed that reporters were
out to get him, and sneered at correspondents' "peacocking" for the
cameras.
With
the press astir over Iraq and the failure to find any weapons of mass
destruction, the April 13 press conference—only Bush's 12th since
taking office, the lowest number since Ronald Reagan, who had held 23
by the same point in his presidency—promised to be contentious. White
House aides informed the president that reporters were planning to
"brother-in-law"—work together to follow up each other's questions.
"Really?" Bush deadpanned, unimpressed. The Bush team decided, just in
case the press gabble became too loud and obnoxious (or Bush lost his
sang-froid under fire), to have the president open with a long
statement of resolve, a kind of pre-emptive strike before the sniping
began.
HOW BUSH DID IT
NEWSWEEK's exclusive, behind-the-scenes account of the presidential campaign
During
the question-and-answer, Bush doggedly repeated his shows of resolve,
but he seemed scratchy and petulant with reporters and absolutely
refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong. The press
panned Bush's performance, but the public did not. Less than a week
later, a Gallup poll declared BUSH APPROVAL STILL AT 52%. The
late-night comics were having fun with Bushisms, but at the "Strategery
Department" of BC04 headquarters, everyone was laughing along. The
Bushies had adopted the "Strategery" title during the last election
after comic actor Will Ferrell had made fun of Bush's malapropisms on
"Saturday Night Live." Now, when Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" on Comedy
Central spoofed the BC04 attack ads, everyone in Strategery chortled.
In one segment, correspondent Ed Helms jokingly gushed over his
favorite, the "Troops-Fog" ad that had featured Kerry's "$87 billion"
gaffe. Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" had just won top prize at the
Cannes Film Festival—the Palme d'Or—and Helms used the award as a pun.
"I award this ad my highest praise," he simpered. "The coveted Palme de
Bitch-Slap." For McKinnon's birthday on May 5, his colleagues presented
him with a small golden "Palme de Bitch-Slap" statuette. McKinnon stuck
it on top of his TV.
