Sprint to the finish…
The New York Times reports that the Bush administration is formulating an interesting re-election campaign:
The president is planning a sprint of a campaign that would start, at least officially, with his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, a speech now set for Sept. 2.
The convention, to be held in New York City, will be the latest since the Republican Party was founded in 1856, and Mr. Bush’s advisers said they chose the date so the event would flow into the commemorations of the third anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
The back-to-back events would complete the framework for a general election campaign that is being built around national security and Mr. Bush’s role in combatting terrorism, Republicans said. Not incidentally, they said they hoped it would deprive the Democratic nominee of critical news coverage during the opening weeks of the general election campaign.
This strategy assumes that Bush will get on top of the domestic agenda. It also assumes that the rebuilding of Iraq won’t become a complete mess. If so, he puts the Democrats is a terrible bind because voters would be unlikely to consider this maneuver a crass politicization of the 9/11 anniversary.
A sprint beginning in NYC also offers Republicans the chance to control the message during the most important time in the campaign, when independents and fence-sitters finally make up their minds.
UPDATE (8:40 a.m.): The Scrum considers the Democrats’ predicament.
