POLITICS 88 : Try to Avoid Mistakes as Momentum Grows : Aides Keep Bush Isolated From Voters

George Bush clambered into a yellow Caterpillar front-loader in a Raleigh, N.C., gravel quarry the other day. He revved the engine, inched the massive machine forward and scooped up a full load of rocks.

A dump truck sidled alongside. Bush dumped the rocks into the truck bed, then emerged from the cab, arms at his side.

From 50 feet away, an aide yelled: “Wave, sir!” Bush waved. Cameras whirred.

What they did not record was that, aside from reporters, Bush and his security cordon and four gravel pit executives, the site was deserted.

Image Matters

But it looked as though Bush was among the common people doing common activities, and as Super Tuesday inched closer, image was what mattered to the ever-cautious Bush campaign.

With the momentum going their way--Bush aides publicly predicted Monday that they would prevail in at least a dozen of the 17 Republican contests today--a shroud of insulation has been thrown over the candidate.

Rare are the days now when Bush has more than fleeting contact with voters. Even his televised forays among voters lean toward more frivolous events. Day-care centers and senior citizens’ homes are absent from his itinerary.

“Over the next few days, our job will be to not take anything for granted or make any mistakes,” Craig Fuller, Bush’s chief of staff, said Sunday.

Called Best-Looking

That day, for example, Bush began his campaign by delivering favorite anecdotes at the South Haven Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo., where the church pianist told Bush she would vote for him because he was the best-looking Republican candidate.

Then he journeyed to the “World’s Fishing Fair” at a massive outdoorsmen’s mall in Springfield, where he moved among the exhibitors and was awarded a blue warm-up jacket and a few lures.

“I’ll tell you something,” the vice president said. “If this country ever loses its interest in sports, ever loses its interest in fishing, we’ve got real trouble. And I don’t think that’ll ever happen.”

In Kansas City, his next stop, he gave supporters his stump speech, laced with brief references to the need for a strong defense, a presidential line-item veto to control federal spending and the pending intermediate nuclear forces treaty.

Southern Touch

After golfing and shaking hands at a nearby shopping mall, Bush traveled to St. Louis, where he delivered his speech for the second time, this time adding a Southern touch with a plea that future arms treaties be sought.

“Don’t be afraid to hit a lick for peace,” Bush said, using a colloquialism that means “work hard.”

On Monday, he spoke to University of Missouri students and, for the first time in a week, took questions from an audience. Then he held rallies in Fayetteville, Ark., and here in Tulsa. At an American Airlines engine overhaul factory here, he stepped in front of the cameras to tighten bolts on one engine and spin the fan of another.

Besides making Bush look good to television viewers, the strategy has also allowed him to seem above political scrapping.

Reporter Berated

Everywhere he goes, Bush is trailed by the national press corps, but rarely does he submit to questions from those reporters. One national writer, representing others as a “pool reporter” at a Bush visit to a North Carolina flea market, was berated by the vice president’s deputy press secretary, Steve Hart, for asking Bush a question. Hart threatened to shut reporters out of such events in the future.

Typically, Bush sits down once or twice a day with local reporters, who represent for him the closest link to a give-and-take with voters. But Bush has an advantage in that they tend to be unaware of his statements in previous cities and he can more easily gloss over potential trouble spots.

For example, the vice president’s speeches in past days have been littered with references to the need for a President to have “stability” or “steadiness.” More than once, he has made that statement directly after referring to comments by his closest competitors, Kansas Sen. Bob Dole and former religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.

Asked by local reporters in one city if he was suggesting that Dole or Robertson was unstable, Bush said he had “never” linked their comments with his remarks about stability.

‘I Don’t Recall’

Later, asked about the apparent discrepancy by national reporters, Bush replied: “I don’t recall the allegation you made. . . . The people can interpret it any way they want to.”

Bush’s staff, in private, made no secret of its intent to keep Bush on as rigid a schedule as possible before today’s contests to lessen the odds that an unplanned statement could threaten his front-runner status.

The strategy provoked a joking, yet accurate remark at the Raleigh gravel pit on Saturday, when a television correspondent asked Bush why he chose to pose there.

“So you can get good pictures,” shouted Bush’s press secretary, Peter Teeley.